Ah, apologies. I must have been thinking of the newer offense.
Thank you for straightening me out. In a text based forum it’s important to use the right words and terms to express yourself clearly, and obviously I did not.
No prob. Understanding each other helps everyone. 
<Head explodes> 
One of the reasons i’m against the death penalty is that the judicial system is not infallible. We have here a pretty much open-and-shut case of horrifying brutality, which (IMHO) is enough to warrant the death penalty for this guy. Emphasis on this guy. We can’t enact a law prohibiting the death penalty except for this one guy - a death penalty law brought into force in order to kill him would likely be written that death is reasonable “in cases of horrifying brutality” or “in cases of grievous bodily harm of a child” - and thus would allow more cases to be brought into an fallible system. This guy deserves death. Others affected by this DP law might not.
Does that explain my position better?
Yes, one does want to blame the mother! She was the person who bought this revolting person into the home. Too many single mothers are looking for a man, any man, and not considering their children. SOME women need to learn to put their children first.
He is scum pure and simple. She was the one who should have protected her child.
That explains my position, too. If it were just circumstantial evidence, then a life sentence would be enough. Any case where there’s this much proof, however, it’s time for the needle.
As heinous an individual as he is, I don’t believe he “deserves” the death penalty. Deserve has nothing to do with it, in my opinion.
I believe killing* is wrong; it does not matter how evil the victim is. His actions do not excuse ours. I do not want to be a party to cold-blooded murder, even if it’s done judiciously by the State.
*Unless in immediate response to deadly assault.
An understandable position. I personally don’t have any problems with cold-blooded murder, if I think it’s the best action to take, but then I don’t have a problem with any punishment really (should it prove to be the best course of action). But yes, I do get where you’re coming from on this - we should not stoop to their level, as it were.
His actions determine what our response should be. String him up. Anything less is a peversion of justice.
A legal execution is not murder.
I disagree. Aren’t we supposed to be better than he is? I see it as a hypocritical perversion of justice to say that killing is wrong, except if the State does it.
As the wife of a deputy warden of a prison, I feel very comfortable in saying that life in prison is far greater a punishment than a quick, painless death.
A society is judged by how it treats its
Well, it’s technically a “homicide”-- at least that’s what goes on the death certificate. As for it being cold-blooded murder, that is my opinion. Yours may differ.
To me, there’s no way I can think of the DP except as murder. We are killing a person, plain and simple. The playground excuse of “Well, he did it first!” seems pathetic and weak. Dress it up however you like with procedure and legalities, but we are still intentionally taking a human life in cold blood. It’s murder.
I believe this so strongly that I actually have a clause in my will that if I am ever the victim of murder, I request that my killer not recieve the DP. It’s not legally binding, of course, but a jury might take it into consideration.
Oops, sorry-- the third line should be “A society is judged by how it treats its undesirables.”
Unless “we” (I assume you mean the state) grab this guy by the neck, burn his face off and then fracture his skull, we’re already all kinds of better than he is, sweety.
Then you don’t understand the meaning of the word “justice”.
So, you advocate torture rather than execution. Interesting.
“murderers” I presume. Frankly I think a society is better judged by how they mistreat the victims of such people and their families. We’re failing badly.
Is that before or after the clause in your will asking them to sing Kum Bye Ya while they are considering it?
Again, I don’t feel that the heinous nature of the crime has anything to do with it. We don’t execute all murderers-- should the DP be dependant on whether the crime strikes us as particularly mean, or the victim tugs at our heartstrings more than others?
I don’t think it’s synonymous with “revenge” if that’s what you mean. To me, justice is taking the moral high road-- it is not stooping to the level of the perpetrator. It means seeing that the criminal is kept away from society where he cannot harm others, but respecting his human rights.
Torture? What torture? Inmates are treated humanely-- they’re just not happy.
Oh, so we should be judged by how we treat people we like, and feel sorry for. Does this pity extend to the grieving family of an inmate who is executed?
One of the things that people have always said to me in these debates is “You wouldn’t feel that way if it happened to you or someone you love.” Well, I’m putting my money where my mouth is, so to speak.
My husband faces the potential he could be murdered* every day *when he walks into that prison. He’s not exactly working with the nicest people in the world. I know that if he was killed, my grief and rage would be nearly unbearable, but it wouldn’t make me want to kill someone. I’m a better person than that.
I am not an “inmate-lover.” Though my husband’s job, I have seen the true, sickening face of evil. I have heard of crimes of monstrous cruelty, of almost unimaginable, horrific acts-- things that give me nightmares, and makes my heart break for the victims and their families. The inhumanity that humans are capapble of never ceases to amaze or sadden me.
But I do not believe in killing people, no matter how nasty they are. It does no good-- it doesn’t take back the crime, and it doesn’t have any preventive effects on others. (Some scholars believe it may actually have the opposite effect on society, the “brutalization effect.”) Nor do I feel comfortable being lumped in with the countries which still have the DP like Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Of course. People who commit extraordinary crimes deserve extraordinary punishment.
What rights? the criminal forfeited his rights when he voluntarily chose to perpetrate a viscous crime. It’s the oldest concept of justice humanity has-an eye for an eye.
OK, “torture” may be going a bit far, but you are still saying it’s better to make them suffer for a long lifetime than to simply execute them. I’m not sure that’s a line of argument I’d be advancing if my reasoning was that it was the humane thing to do.
Nope. Because the criminal made a choice to do what he did. the victim was innocent. Whole universes of difference between the situations there.
No, you’ll be dead. It won’t matter one wit to you anymore.
And you can take solace in the fact that you’re “better than” some murderer while you husband lies dead and the murderer goes on, strutting around the prison, a big man cuz he killed the warden. Feeling “better than” someone else sure is important to you, isn’t it? Might want to talk to a shrink about that.
It ensures that the criminal will never do what he did to another person in the future.
I disagree heartily. Law should not be based on emotion. If you violate X law, you get Y punishment. It shouldn’t change based on how cute and cuddly the victim was. Murder is murder whether it’s done with a knife or a needle and gurney.
The Supreme Court doesn’t see it your way. My husband cannot beat inmates, starve them, deprive them of access to the courts, or keep them in unsanitary/unsafe conditions. If he did that, he would go to prison himself. Even an inmate an hour away from execution is treated with respect to his human rights.
Again, I don’t believe that because someone chose to violate the rights of another that it gives us the right to do the same. I learned that in kindergarten-- just because Cindy pulled my hair does not give me the right to pull hers. Likewise, just because somebody killed a person does not give me the right to kill them.
So is slavery and prostitution, but you don’t see a big push to make either of those legal.
It is. I see nothing wrong with keeping a person incarcerated and away from all of the joys in life because they violated the law. I will insist that they be given their human rights, but it doesn’t cost me any sleep if they’re unhappy. They *should *be unhappy. Prison is not a day-camp. It exists for punishment and rehabilitation. It’s not a cruel or neglectful place, but it is crowded, noisy, hot in the summer, lacking privacy, and you’re not living with the world’s sweetest-natured people.
We’re not talking about the criminal. We’re talking about his mother, his siblings, his wife, and his children. They did not make the choice to voilate the law, but they will be punished all the same. The criminal’s mother will face one of the deepest griefs a parent can face-- to bury her child. She is in exactly the same position as the mother of the victim. Her grief is no less because the State decreed that her son “deserved” to die. The children will grow up without a father, and it won’t matter in the least that Daddy “deserved” to die-- they will suffer the lack just the same.
True, but I feel I have made what stand I could.
How he feels is completely immaterial to me. I can’t make him feel bad for what he did, no matter what punishment the State gave him. Some men go to the death chamber as defiant as ever. Nor can I imagine taking any comfort from the fact that another murder was committed in revenge.
Cute.
Yes, it is important for me to take the moral highground, and I wish our country would do the same. The hypocrisy of the DP embarasses me, as well as being lumped in with countries like Iran which have no respect for human rights, instead of joining the other civilized nations which have abolished the DP. It’s not a matter of pride or moral snobbery, but of wanting to do what is right. I dream of the day when we can say that we respect the rights of even those whose actions make our blood boil in rage.
So does life in prison. Despite what you may have seen in movies, murders in prison rarely happen, and escapes are rarer still.
There is no emotion involved. If you do X you get Y, and if X happens to be a particularly violent or viscous crime, then Y is the DP.
Uh-huh. And his rights were protected by the due process of law. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. The “right not to be executed for your crimes” does not exist. Read the 14th Amendment: “nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” The courts have consistently found that this means that the state can deprive a person of his life, as long as it is done with due process of law.
See above. When your hair was pulled, you went to the teacher who punished the puller. Same deal here.
I don’t see anyone claiming that slavery or prostitution have jack squat to do with justice.
So we’re back to a mild form of torture as appropriate. (I don’t mean to keep using that loaded word, but I can’t think of another term for an ongoing condition intended to makes someone suffer as punishment for their crimes)
Uh-huh. Boo fucking oho. If they lost their daddy or their son or whoever to execution, they at least know that it was because of what their daddy did, not because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I ever kill my parents, I want you on the jury, I’m gonna use the “but I’m an orphan!” defense. What a load of crap.
Even if I think it’s a stupid and misguided stand to take, I applaud you for having the courage to make it.
That’s fine, you can beg the judge for leniency when your husband’s murderer is being sentenced. I wouldn’t feel the same way. Don’t impose your questionable moral values on other people.
The difference between you and me is that I know I’m better then the piece of shit who burned and murdered a baby. And I will still be better than he is even if I participate in a legal process that results in him being executed. You’re all concerned with some dreamy eyed idea of what is “right” that you are willing to forgo such things as responsibility and justice just so you can flutter your hands and claim to be “right”. Fuck that.
Does it ever happen? Is there the family of a prison guard out there who is forced to live without their father or husband or son because he was killed by an inmate who had already committed multiple violent crimes, and yet because someone didn’t want to “deprive” his family of a father or son or husband, he wasn’t executed? Your sense of priorities is whack.
I don’t think I need to remind you that a lot of injustices were once enshrined in law, but later recinded. It’s my opinion that the DP is one of them, and in the future, people will look back and marvel at how barbaric we used to be, even as we considered ourselves “enlightened.”
Yes, but the State punishes offenders in my name-- in the name of every citizen. I am a party to whatever punishment it choses to mete out to offenders. In essence, I am killing someone when the State choses to execute.
You said that “an eye for an eye” was one of the oldest insitutions of man. So is slavery. The age of a concept does not grant it validity, nor make it morally right.
Prison does not make anyone “suffer.” It does deprive them of life’s joys and it is not a pleasant place to live, but it is in no way, no form, “torture.” (You’re a smart fellow. Methinks you chould chose a better word if you wished.)
I see nothing wrong with people paying for their crimes. Just because I don’t want people killed doesn’t mean I’m a softie when it comes to criminals. I want their time in prison to be unhappy and uncomfortable. They’re there to be punished, after all.
My stance is simply that it is wrong to kill people. If it’s wrong to kill someone in the street, it’s wrong to kill them in an execution chamber.
Your lack of sympathy for grieving people is chilling and a little disturbing. The family members did nothing to deserve your scorn.
I have a similar view of the death penalty in of itself-- something of questionable morality has been imposed upon me.
Personally, I have to look in askance at someone who thinks that killing another person will in some way assuage their grief.
I am not willing to forgo responsibility or justice. As I said, people should be made to pay for their crimes. I just don’t believe that killing them fulfills that.
Go ahead and cherish your image of me as a wishy-washy liberal inmate-hugger if it makes you feel better about yourself. But try to remember through your fog of smug superiority that I have actually walked amongst these people. I have looked straight into the face of unspeakable evil, and I still think killing people is wrong.
Yes, actually, but not often enough to use it as an excuse to kill people. And besides, if you want to make the prisons safe for the guards you’d have to execute inmates who are in for things like theft and assault-- the “gang bangers” are usually more dangerous than the lifers in for murder.
Secondly, an inmate sentanced to the DP has a hell of a lot of time before the gurney is wheeled out, and he’s got nothin’ to lose. Plenty of time to kill a guard if he’s so inclined. Apparently, not may are, because it’s an incredibly rare thing.
A lifer, on the other hand, doesn’t usually cause much trouble. He wants to “lay low” because he doesn’t want his privledges removed. Actually, many of them keep the young punks in line because they don’t want the staff doing searches of dorms, revoking privledges or causing upheavals in their lives.
Thirdly, most murderers are not serial killers. Most murderers only kill one person, and they did it because of a particualr set of circumstances. Just because they killed a guy in a bar fight does not mean they’ll murder the first guard who looks at them funny. Likewise, the guy in the OP is unlikely to kill again. If he’s an abusive predator, his prey is children. he’s unlikely to try to do the same to an adult.
Lissa
I don’t really have a dog in this fight. IMHO, the guy we’re debating ought to be subjected to due process and then killed. As quickly and humanely as possible, but very definately killed. This seems so obvious as to be beyond debate.
OTOH, I do take issue with the statement that “it doesn’t have any preventive effects on others”
If you changed the statement to read; “It doesn’t have a deterrent effect as it’s presently done in the US” then I think we could agree.
AFAICT, the time between trial and execution in the US is anywhere from one to two decades, is done inside a prison with a minimum of witnesses, and is physically no worse than watching someone being given anesthesia.
There are several things wrong with this:
a) The time lag between conviction and execution makes murder something like smoking. If you do it, you might die sometime in the very distant future.
b) The other thing is that only a few people witness the execution and they are mostly officials of one sort or another.
c) Lastly, executing someone by lethal injection has no visceral impact on those few witnesses that are allowed.
In Saudi, the time between trial and execution is about one year and is done in a very public and bloody manner. Anyone who wants to witness the punishment is welcome to do so. This is not done to provide a public spectacle, but to provide the deterrent effect we agree is lacking in the US.
I don’t believe that anyone who has witnessed a public beheading could doubt the deterrent effect of this. Watching a blade separate someone’s head from his body gives you a very serious realization that it could be you standing there.
The reduced time lag between trial and execution also provides a sense of justice having been done to the victims.
There are many things I dislike about the Saudi justice system but I do believe we could learn a few things from them. Aside from the odd terrorist, Saudi is an extremely safe place to raise children.
On a final note, I would say that if your husband were killed in Saudi, under their justice system you could pardon his killers and your wishes would be honored, they’d walk away free.
Regards
Testy
As a history buff, I can say that this is patently false. Public executions were the norm in 16th and 17th century England (the time period with which I am most familiar.) It was considered fun for the whole family. Thousands of people would line up to watch hangings, beheadings, and the hideously painful methods of drawing and quartering as well as burning at the stake.
The range of crimes for which one could be executed was larger-- robbery and theft were hanging offenses, as well as heresy. There was little respect for age or gender-- children and women recieved much the same punishments when they were caught doing something criminal.
From all accounts, the atmosphere at an execution was not one of solemn introspection. Execution days were treated as carnivals by the locals. Vendors sold snacks and souvineer pamphlets describing the deeds of the condemned in salacious detail. Spectators jeered and laughed at the condemned, often throwing rotten vegetables, rocks and dung at the them as they were led to the scaffold. They laughed uproariously at the screams of agony, and little children would play “mock execution” aping the shrieks of the dying.
Hanging was often accomplished by hauling the condemned up by the neck and then tying the rope to a stationary object, so it took quite a while for the condemned to die. The crowd would wait until the body was still before reluctantly dispersing. Afterwards, they dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood for luck, or bought pieces of the rope that hanged the condemned.
Astonishlingly enough, seeing a thief die didn’t reduce the rates of theivery, nor did burning heretics alive cause their numbers to dwindle. Though traitors died a horrible death, there were still those willing to rebel.
People don’t commit crimes thinking they’ll get caught. Murderers do not stop in the heat of the moment and think, “Well, gosh, if I do this, I might get a lethal injection.” No rapist has ever changed his mind because he might go to prison. They all think that they’ll get away with it, or they just don’t think about it at all.
I don’t doubt that one bit. The more freedom a society has, the more crime there will be. But what is the cost of that safety? Your children may be safer in Saudi Arabia, but they’re likely sequestered.
The question then becomes “What do you define as a crime?” In Saudi Arabia, there are many accepted practices which would be considered crimes here in the US. It may not be that their crime rates are so much lower, but what they *consider *crimes is different.