What crimes deserve the DP, given perfect knowledge?

Great Debates
1

I am firmly against the death penalty, not on a sanctity of human life issue, but because we as a nation have the resources to lock up all of the convicts (especially if we divert resources away from the futile war on drugs,) so that those that are not guilty can have a small chance to live their lives again.

However, if we had a perfect way of knowing what crimes a person did or did not commit, what sort of crimes would warrant death?

Before I seriously considered posting this, I thought that, given perfect knowledge of course, that nearly any non-victimless felony would be right. Then I applied the Golden Rule: if I were to factually commit any of these crimes, would I then feel I had lost my right to live on this earth?

By this rule I pared down the list to these crimes, off the top of my head:

Murder
Grand Larceny (or any theft over $10,000, whatever that’s called.)
Theft with a deadly weapon (whatever that’s technically called.)
Factually non-consensual penetrative intercourse.
Child pornography.

Does anyone who thinks that those who have committed one or more of these crimes deserves to live? If so, why? Are there any other crimes you think are deserving of the DP, given absolute flawless knowledge?

2

Treason, genocide, desertion from the armed forces in time of war, espionage for an enemy power, fighting in the army of a nation at war with the US, terrorism, mass murder.

I’ll justify my choices if you want.

3

It seems genocide and mass murder also fall under my rubric of “murder”, altho I agree that the commital of these also involves the forfeiture of moral right to consider oneself a member of the human race.

I’d agree with the rest, too, except “desertion” and “terrorism”. While I don’t think treason and combat are ever justified while you still keep your U.S. citizenship, “desertion” could be justified if the U.S. army is committing crimes against humanity. And “terrorism” is too loosely defined: I’m not sure that PETA research-facility-wreckers, while engaging in terrorism (the invoking of fear through violence or threat of violence to score policital gains,) would justify the DP. Altho it comes close, to tell the truth.

4

I will go with that list and add aggravated serial child molestation. This can be molestation of multiple children or molesting the same child on different occasions. I would also add first-degree murder of an especially heinous nature.

The reasons I give are my own and very simple. Some people commit crimes that deserve punishment that is above and beyond a lifetime prison sentence. The fear leading up to the execution is that punishment. Also, the execution gives the victims and their families closure. It also gives the general public comfort is knowing that justice has been served and that a heinous criminal no longer exists.

5

Not crimes so much as criminals in my mind:

serial murderers
cold blooded murderers like the Peterson case
murderers with a history of physical violence
mass murderers including terrorists
rapists
people with long histories of physical violence
serial paedophiles
most murderers present no ongoing threat to society and are more to be pitied. Economic crimes, theft etc, and political crimes don’t warrant death.

6

When Jenna Jameson has been a bad, bad girl…

7

Wow, great list.

Treason? Yep.
Genocide? Of course.
Desertion in wartime? No, but yes to Desertion from the Field of Battle
Espionage for an enemy power? Sounds good.
Fighting in the army of a nation at war with the US? Nope. That’s a POW in my book.
Terrorism? I’d say no, just like I’d say no to hate crimes. Some warrant it, but too many shades of gray.
Mass murder? Clearly.

I strongly disagree with rape deserving the death penalty, unless we get some new terms for it. For instance, date rape hardly seems punishable by death, especially if the woman doesn’t even remember. Street rape would be much more worthy of the death penalty, but I’m still not completely for that. I could get on board for any rape that resulted in transmission of a fatal disease. Also, there are cases of men being raped by women, and not in a sodomy way. Surely that is not worthy of lethal injection?

8

I was thinking that until I realized the OP didn’t mean double penetration. :smack:

9

Me, too - and it’s a sad thing that we can’t talk about how bad of a girl Jenna Jameson is in this forum :slight_smile:

Anyhoo, onto the OP:
The only crimes that would warrant the death penalty in the perfect vision society would be for me:

  1. Serious Murder, by which I mean murder with pre-planning, multiple murders, murders in commission of another criminal act such as robbery or rape, or murders of police officers. Other types of murder, such as accident or not planned, would result in significant jail terms.
  2. Serial rape, or violent rape, especially if injuries result. Other rapes, especially date rape, would result in long jail terms.
  3. Serious paedophilia, meaning repeated (either multiple victims or multiple instances on one victim,) profiting from the crime (i.e. distributing child porn), or aiding or abetting others in commiting similar crimes. Since you can’t legislate thought, so Sorry, posession of child porn would not even be illegal, but as soon as one distributed it, especially for profit, the punishment comes down hard on their heads. If anyone commits the crime of paedophilia, they are well and truly fucked, but those who never actually perform an act of paedophilia but have paedophile tendencies won’t have anything happen to them.
  4. Treason resulting in significant damage to US interests at home or abroad; treason that wasn’t damaging would result only in stiff jail terms. It would be the Government’s responsibility in such cases to provide proof of damage understandable to the common man.
  5. Dessertion in the face of the enemy with no justification (to cover off the ‘desertion to avoid performing war crimes’ angle). Regular dessertion, even in time of war, would only carry a stiff jail term.

And the final one, which is sure to kick up a storm…
6. Death for any drug-related crime

Now, before everyone picks up their sticks to smack me with, let me say that in my hypothetical role as King and Benevolent Tyrant of the Perfect World, all drugs would be legal. This would be more along the lines of men who use drugs to rape women, anyone who gives drugs to kids, or anyone who tries to use drugs as an excuse for commiting another crime. No more ‘I had to rob that old lady to get my fix’

And here’s the real kicker - it would include alchohol. Sorry to you drunk drivers out there, but if you do it you’re risking so many lives it’s not even funny and you deserve to die if you’ve caused the death of another in a drunken driving incident.

Of course, there would have to be all sorts of other means of helping addicts, such as treatment programs, etc… so that there was a viable alternative, but that’s in the implementation. I am much more of a ‘big ideas’ kind of guy :slight_smile:

10

Basically, assuming perfect knowledge, I could be comfortable applying the death penalty to a whole swath of crimes. First, you’d have to remove any “morality” laws from the books, though.

But let’s take, for example, littering.

Is there any reason someone should be allowed to intentionally litter? We have perfect knowledge, so we can distinguish any instances of accidental litter.

So what happens if you assign the death penalty for intentional littering?

Nobody litters anymore. At least, not intentionally.

It’s draconian, but balanced by the lack of morality laws on the books, I think it’s still a free society. Littering, of course, might be a bad example, as it’s something that might be used for civil disobedience.

shakey fist :mad: But I’ll show those plebians. Oh, yes. I’ll show them all.

:wink:

11

[Insert joke about me thinking the OP meant Double Penetration]
I wouldn’t worry. I wouldn’t be surpised if Mr. Peterson suffers this DP in prison as well!

Don’t drop the soap, Scott!

12

There are no crimes that merit the death penalty.

13

What This Year’s Model said.
But permanent imprisonment would be suitable punishment for many of the crimes so far mentioned for the DP, and I would allow any prisoner so iimprisoned to be allowed to choose the Death Penalty at there own disscression as an alternative.

14

I categorically oppose the death penalty.

15

It’s not a question of whether these criminals deserve to live: it’s a question of whether we’ve got a right to kill them. I don’t believe we do; indeed, I think we only have a right to take a person’s life when we know that doing so has a strong chance of saving more lives (and not always then).

Since we can pretty well keep prisoners locked up for life, and since the DP deterrence seems to be a myth, I don’t believe there are any circumstances under which the death penalty is warranted and I turn it on y’all to tell me why it should be.

Daniel

16

nobody deserves to be forever locked up in a cage.

17

I see the difference between permanent imprisonment and the death penalty mainly in the fact that the imprisoned should be given the ability to make peace with his/her own spiritual feelings, and to make whatever recompence they can for what they did. Simply caging is another form of death penalty, mearly with a very slow death. Imprisonment that allows the imprisoned the possibility of living a valuable life locked away from society is the thing I would want to exist.

18

I have to say I disagree. Someone who violates the rights of others forgoes their own rights to some degree. In the case of something small, say petty larceny, it might be for less than a yaer. But if someone takes the life of another, or rapes another, then a lifetime sentance in prison is not enough, in my book. However, I am against the death penalty for all but the most violent of crimes. Unfortunestly, I’m not smart enough to devise a perfect way to punish criminals. I don’t think ‘eye for an eye’ is always good method (a terrorist who kills several people in a car bomb is one of my exceptions,) but on the other hand, keeping these people in jail, giving them three square meals a day, etc., is a huge drain on this nation’s resources, though I will admit it does supply a lot of jobs (I know that the economy in my current living area would be severly hurt if the prisons up here (there are a lot of them!) were to be shut down.)

I’m sorry I don’t have a perfect solution, but really, no one does, or else we wouldn’t be having this debate. I do have a few…unorthodox ideas, though, but I think they may violate the Geneva convention.

Murder is a tricky subject, but given that we have perfect knowledge, let’s also assume we have perfect knowledge of what the killer is thinking. If we can honestly see they are remorseful/sorry/whatever, then certainly the option of parole is to be considered. But is it’s completly cold blooded, and we can see that, then lock them up and throw away the key.

As for crimes such as rape/domestic violence/assault, I’m very in favor of eye for an eye, to an extent. I think that if a victim so chooses, then they can be allowed to physically hurt their attacker. Not to say that a rape victim gets to rape/sodomize/exually assualt their rapist, but I’m all in favor of them being able to give them a good punch in the face, or kick in the groin. The odds of the ocaisional punch in the face/kick on the groin seriously injuring the attacker is nill, and even if it does happen, this person severly viol;ated their victim, and probably deserves it. Of course, the same rule about knowing what the criminals thought about their crime as above applies to this scenario too.

I will be the first to admit my ideas are carzy, and maybe even a bit ontradictory, but that’s cause I myself still haven’t figured out my complete stance on crime and punishment, beyond no death penalty except for ahorrent crimes (multiple murders/extremley violent rape or assualt/torture.)

19

Here! Here!

20

This is all well and good, but I keep thinking about desertion from the field of battle as being an exception. If a soldier is covering the flank, and abandons his post when the shit hits the fan, and as a consequence that flank gets overrun with no warning to the front line resulting in untold casualties for the poor schmucks up there, then I have no problem putting that deserter to death.

I’m not unsympathetic to the hell that must be a battlefield, and I don’t pretend to even be able to begin to comprehend what it must be like, but I think this longstanding policy probably has merit.