Poll: How do you feel about death penalty?

[Use_Imagination_here]

I don't trust any government enough to have the right to kill people. Even if it's stable now, that might change and it pays to have this shit established.

And it's actually MORE expensive then life in prison. I find the idea of wasting additional money for some completely pointless and hollow revenge to be barbaric.

Life in prison isn't much better anyway.

 

[Dimitriov]

You want to try rehabilitating these fuckers? Go nuts. But while you piss years of therapy and tax dollars on trying to "rehabilitate" a man who just took away some kids' fathers or wives' husbands, I'm not going to shed a single goddamn tear as monsters like this get put in a casket with a nameless grave.

sorry, but it costs WAAAAY more to execute someone than it does to imprison them forever, cuz of al the crazy retrials etc they get

personally, I'm anti death penalty because I cant think of any type of law that wouldn't be one hell of a slippery slope in terms of how much evidence was acceptable.
and basically...
As I see it, the death penalty should be allowable, HOWEVER
if it is later proven that the man/woman killed was innocent, the judge who decided on the death penalty, MUST face the death penalty. no re-trials, no loopholes, if he killed an innocent man, then since society has already said that's a crime punishable by death....theres only one option to avoid making a mockery of the societies values.

and that way, a judge would have to be either really sure or really outraged at the crime

This sort of thinking is actually technically wrong. I am just quoting your post because it is the most recent, but many people make this mistake.

The historical precedent really derives from the fact that only the state (or a monarch etc.) has the right to kill someone. So a murderer has usurped the state's right over its own citizens and thus is punished by the state.

Now you may well not like that, or think it should be changed, but that is the underlying historic principle behind executions.

In other words it is impossible for the state to murder someone, because they are already deemed to have the right to kill. Human rights don't enter into it because those are not some divine birthright, but rather certain legal privileges which have been extended from governments to citizens. And where the death penalty is legal those particular human rights obviously don't apply.

OT: I am morally in favour of the death penalty, but I do have some practical reservations.

 

[ThoughtlessConcept]

It should be there, not for doing drugs/smuggling, being gay, or adultery like it's used in some other countries.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

and basically...
As I see it, the death penalty should be allowable, HOWEVER
if it is later proven that the man/woman killed was innocent, the judge who decided on the death penalty, MUST face the death penalty. no re-trials, no loopholes, if he killed an innocent man, then since society has already said that's a crime punishable by death....theres only one option to avoid making a mockery of the societies values.

and that way, a judge would have to be either really sure or really outraged at the crime

That's insanely problematic. In this scenario, a judge could still be executed for doing their job perfectly.

A judge can only rely on the evidence presented, and that evidence is never going to be perfect, it's possible to frame someone, it's possible that someone down the chain fucked up, it's possible that DNA evidence was incorrect, but a judge has no way at all of knowing what those instances are.

You are essentially suggesting that out of two judges with completely identical evidence presented, one should be executed and one shouldn't because of someone completely unrelated to them down the chain fucking up.

You seem to be under the delusion that the system is perfect and mistakes don't happen. But the court system is as flawed as any system of the government, and it's just as liable to error. The evidence acquired may not always be correct, the picture that seems clearly painted might be completely wrong, but it's still completely indistinguishable from valid evidence to the judge or jury.

And even if you chose to punish the person responsible for the false evidence in those instances, what would be the line at which a judge would be sufficiently sure to convict someone of the death penalty?

Because there's ALWAYS a chance. Even if the evidence presented was valid, there's ALWAYS a chance that the person was still innocent, that something else was going on.

People speaking of video evidence are apparently unaware of very convincing masks, genetic twins, or doppelgangers. But if you have clear video evidence of someone being killed by someone else, there's still a 99,8 percent chance that they did it. Should a judge withhold the death penalty on that 0,02% chance? After all, one in 500 times they'd get executed for giving it.

A judge would never withhold PUNISHMENT if there was video evidence, but are they sure enough to risk their own death?

How sure would you have to be then? 99.99% sure? 1 and 0 are not probabilities, and there's no such thing as absolutely certain evidence. So basically, you're suggesting that a judge be executed for doing their job exactly as intended and trained.

You're basing this idea on the flawed notion that incompetence is required for a false sentence, that if perfectly executed the criminal justice system would never give anyone innocent a sentence, which is a nice idea but completely false. This would mean that 100% certainty were required for a conviction and there's no such thing.

 

[Risingblade]

The death penalty is a waste of time and money. 90% of inmates who enter the system are eventually released, the money wasted on the death penalty should be going to rehabilitating those lesser offenders.

 

[mortalsatsuma]

The main problem I have with it is that it just takes way too long to do it. In America It can take decades to execute someone for a crime they committed. I can understand lodging appeals etc but why does it often take this long?

 

[Phasmal]

Conflicted.

OT: It's so not fair that I'm not allowed a one-word answer because that's the long and short of it. Logically I oppose it because I don't think it works as a deterrent, but there's a part of me who would like people who commit certain types of crimes to be dead.

 

[Mobax]

I'm against the death penalty for 3 reasons.

1. It does not discourage people from committing violent crimes, I did a study on it for school 10 years ago, and US states with the death penalty on average had higher violent crime rates then states without the death penalty. And while the doesn't prove the death penalty should be removed, it does show it obviously does nothing to reduce the risk of violent crimes. Simply put, the death penalty is not a deterrent.

2. The risk of innocent people being wrongfully executed. It has happened, it is happening, and it will happen again. There was a famous case in Canada of David Milgaard, he was falsely convicted for rape and murder, he was 17 when he was sent to prison 1970. He server 23 years before he was cleared and released. Canada had the death penalty on the books until 1976, but fortunately Milgaard was not sentenced to death, or else he surely would've been executed. I believe in the legal system of innocent until proven guilty. And by extension, I don't think the risk of one innocent life executed is worth all the vile people who would be destroyed.

3. Finally it's a hypocritical punishment. The laws of a nation will tell you not to murder. But they will punish you by killing you? That takes away from the right of a society to condemn the taking of human life when the very practice is endorsed and carried out by the society which criminalizes it. That sort of eye-for-an-eye way of thinking is backwards at best, malicious at worst. As that cliche goes, it makes the whole world blind. We don't punish someone who kidnaps someone's child by kidnapping their loved one. We don't beat sanction a person convicted of assault to be beaten. I understand the sentiment that more tangible punishments are needed; whether to teach the convicted a lesson, or to give a measure of satisfaction to the victims. But at the end of the day, those who are executed don't learn anything, and it doesn't bring back the victims. It also absolutely closes the door on any chance of reconciling and possible regret and forgiveness.

There are other reasons too, the cost of the legal proceeding for a capital case etc. But those are more semantic in my opinion. I think it is in the best interest of all people and societies to have laws and punishments which do not engage in the behavior they outlaw. And a society that looks at rehabilitation over retribution is going to be a society which cares more about all it's members. Perhaps even have less crime, as young people in trouble would be given help and chances to turn their lives around as opposed to the cold oppressive system that just breeds more disconnect from civil society.

 

[Pat]

'Killing is wrong. We're going to prove that by killing them.'

Seems legit.

Capital punishment is the ultimate hypocrisy in any civilised society. People have been killed and later found to be innocent. It's barbaric, it isn't justice, it's just punishing pain with more pain.

The 'eye for an eye' mentality is ludicrous.

No, the rationale for it is simple: You take the right to life of another, you lose yours. Pretty basic and my justification for it.

Also, an eye for an eye doesn't make the whole world blind. It leaves everyone with one eye.

That's still a whole world without any depth perception. People bumping into doors, each other, falling down stairs; it'd be total chaos.

Seriously though one of the many things I take issue with is that a select few people are legally allowed to kill. These people are just as fallible as anyone else. They make mistakes! Look at the Rosenbergs case. Two people wrongly executed out of total paranoia. And from what we've seen in recent years: Snowden, War on Terror etc. That kind of paranoia is alive and well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8xrGCVrENk
I'd watch this interview. The guy used to be Commissioner of Corrections in Georgia. I'll take it from an expert. And you won't be hard-pressed to find other stuff like this from other executioners.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I'm against it in its current practice, but I'm for it in theory.

Let me clarify: I live in the US, our prisons are completely overpopulated - in large part due to an archaic stance on lesser drug charges requiring a mandatory minimum sentence. We're well aware (hell, there are movies, books, comics, and other popular media rife with this as a theme for crying out loud) that putting lesser criminals into close cohabitation with violent criminals results in making more violent criminals than you had originally. The situations in the prisons are deplorable - there's an entire group of sub cultures, prison gangs that operate from inside to terrorize the outside, and just a myriad of bad problems caused by not dealing with either our minor offenders or our major offenders appropriately to their crimes.

I personally think that, if law enforcement should run up on a criminal in the act where there is absolutely no reasonable question of their guilt and that person is a violent offender (pedophile kidnapper, serial rapist/murderer, arsonist, etc.) then the penalty they face should be harsh, physical, immediate, and public. Seriously - if the police find a man in a house filled with furniture made out of people, I expect to see that person hanging from a high place and being pecked to death by wildlife within the month. I think that's very reasonable. The "put them away so they do no harm again" thing really doesn't work in our prison system. Not to mention the fact that we have poor, innocent, starving children on our streets that won't be helped because we're spending $45,000 a year keeping murderers cozy, warm, and fed so they can't do horrific things to other human beings - AGAIN.

The above thought does not transfer to people who - in a fit of passion or in a moment of total mental instability - commit a violent crime that is wholly uncharacteristic of them as a person. Guy walks in the the wife and gets a flash of angry and pulls a shot - he has a chance of redemption or rehabilitation at least. I'd be comfortable with him being locked away as a punishment for a reasonable amount of time, then given some sort of rehabilitative tasks (therapy, service to the community, reintegration). I'm willing to extend the same type of punishment to first-time single offense criminals, gang members who got sucked into a bad life due to socio-economic pressures and are still redeemable, and the like.

I am, like anyone, concerned that on occasion the innocent may end up where the guilty should be - and that is a problem, but evidence analysis is getting better and better and cameras are in more and more places and that problem is one we're just going to have to keep fighting with the whole "innocent until proven guilty" philosophy. I also believe that minor offenses (petty theft, minor drug charges, non-violent crimes) should be treated entirely differently than major offenses (violent crime, repeat offenders of a violent or escalating nature). Thousands of prisoners in our system would be better served - and we as a society better served - by punishments that involved contributions to society rather than removal from that society.

Seriously though, there do exist human beings who are beyond redemption and a poison to our whole species no matter how deep or dark a hole we put them in and things for which one's life should be forfeit both to preserve society from their corruption and to serve as a final standard by which we all must live. Until we live in a world where there is no strain on resources forcing a choice between helping the innocent needy and storing the criminal element - I have to err on the side of being harsher to criminals and being more charitable to the needy.

 

[zegram33]

and basically...
As I see it, the death penalty should be allowable, HOWEVER
if it is later proven that the man/woman killed was innocent, the judge who decided on the death penalty, MUST face the death penalty. no re-trials, no loopholes, if he killed an innocent man, then since society has already said that's a crime punishable by death....theres only one option to avoid making a mockery of the societies values.

and that way, a judge would have to be either really sure or really outraged at the crime

that if perfectly executed the criminal justice system would never give anyone innocent a sentence, which is a nice idea but completely false. This would mean that 100% certainty were required for a conviction and there's no such thing.

no offence, but I think you've misunderstood my point
the whole POINT of this system is that to hand down the death sentence rather than life imprisonment, a judge has to be BLOODY sure of the evidence as presented.
yes, if the evidence he was given was wrong then he can die, but for that situation to have happened, he would already have killed an innocent man in cold blood (or had him killed, which is legally the same thing).
the fact the criminal justice system is hugely fallible is....kinda the whole point, this system is about making sure the death penalty remains confined to cases where the judge is absolutely certain that the convicted party is guilty.

To put it another way: If the Judge isn't willing to bet his life on that, then what right does he have to take the life of another.
In cases like these, judges would give a life sentence instead.

unless im getting confused and American judges don't handle the actual sentencing, or something, in which case, this should instead apply for whoever actually gives the sentence (ie, a jury shouldn't be executed for contributing to the "guilty" verdict, as they had no input on the actual sentencing)

 

[zegram33]

The historical precedent really derives from the fact that only the state (or a monarch etc.) has the right to kill someone. So a murderer has usurped the state's right over its own citizens and thus is punished by the state.

correct me if I'm wrong (and I may well be) but I don't think a state has the right to murder someone without evidence?
so If a multiple murderer (or hell, a multiple rapist, or torturer, or other kind of genuine sicko)is given the death penalty, its not because only the state has the right to rape or kill people without trial, because the state DOESNT have those rights (at least in the UK, the state doesn't have the right to kill people....at all, to my knowledge)

But thinking about when the UK got rid of the Death penalty brought up an interesting question.
If someone does horrific things because of genuine mental illness (some sort of congenital mental disorder or what have you) is that actually there fault? At what point do we say "that person isn't acting of their own free will"?

I mean obviously, if someone does something from this, they need to be separated from people they could hurt for the rest of their lives, but killing them in cold blood has got to be morally wrong, surely?

but then going on from that....wouldn't you say that anyone who murders or rapes is "insane"? I would, without a doubt, say that anyone who lacks basic human empathy has at the least, a serious mental disorder, so Is anything they do due to that enough of their fault that they should be killed?
imprisoned, in the interest of protecting others, absolutely.
killed?
I cant see it.

I realise thata rgument is controversial as hell, but still.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

The only reason I have for opposing it is that an innocent man might bla bla bla. But oh well. The needs of the many right? Yes?

Spoiler

I'd support death penalty in Argentina in a heartbeat. Fry those loogans.

as if there wasnt enough dead bodies of innocent people on the bottom of the Río de la Plata...

You know what of the military regime my family and countrymen endured from 1976 to 1983, and how does an unconstitutional dictatorship spawned from a military coup d'état that resulted in state terrorism and the forceful disappearence of 30,000 people compare to a democracy that might legally sanction the death penalty for people charged and prosecuted for a crime, please?

 

[Flatfrog]

Which is why I like the way we have it here in Kansas. While the death penalty is still on the books, no one has gotten it for over 60 years, and your average murder (ie, you kill one guy) will net you a "Hard 50", 50 years imprisionment, or if you outlive that, life.

Er... 50 years, or if you outlive that, life? What does that even mean?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

In a world were a person that killed 75 people (Anders Breivik) can claim human rights because he was given a PS2 instead of a PS3 and will be released in 20 ish years. Then yes, i agree with the death penalty. He was caught red handed. Kill him and save the tax payers, and families of the dead, paying for his keep. Now the death penalty shouldnt be used for every one, just those that are 100% guilty and proven as such.

Personally im sick of human rights for criminals, it pisses me off. Criminals should get zero rights. Why dont we the people sue the criminals when they want to be released. Seems the Human Rights act is only used for criminals when us normal people should sue them for fucking up our lives.

 

[Silent Protagonist]

I am overall anti-death penalty. There are many reasons for this: overly expensive, ineffective as a deterrent, unnecessary given that modern high security prisons are all but inescapable, possibility of innocence, and good old respect for human life. Life in prison or even solitary should be more than enough for just about any crime and to prevent any further danger to society

However, I hesitate to want it removed from the books completely. There is the possibility that at someone will come along than can continue to do harm to society from behind bars, whether through connections to organized crime, terrorist groups, fanatics, or any other means, in which case I think the death penalty would be appropriate. I would rather have it as a possibility, just one that is never used. I still probably wouldn't vote against it being outlawed,though.

EDIT:One pro death penalty argument that is often overlooked but has some merit is its use as a legal bargaining chip. There is evidence that the death penalty can be very useful to criminal prosecutors in making plea deals in criminal cases, offering to remove the possibility of a death sentence(sometimes among other things such as a lesser charge or reduced sentencing) in order to get a guilty plea and allowing the trial to be resolved much more quickly and efficiently

 

[Reaper195]

I'm all for the death penalty, but it should only be for the most fucked up people. If a dude murders another dude over a video game, jail for the rest of your life. If a dude rapes and murders another dude because they enoyed it, death penalty. And unlike the bullshit in most other countries, that doesn't mean years of trials, appeals and then a few years in jail. They will be tried as soon as possible (Fairly, of course), and if found guilty, they will be taken out back and shot in the head (Front or back, their decision) immediately.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

The only instance where death penalty is viable is when life long incarceration is not viable or if the person mere existence carries considerable risk to the public. These would have to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

The death penalty is more then a consequence to breaking law and order, it is a deliberate act of vengeance by a state. There are a few problems with that...

*The decision is often influenced by emotions. Idealistically Law should be impartial and justice should reflect that. Obviously this isn't possible given the human elements that operate these systems. So the extent to which "Law" can punish someone should be restricted.

*The state determines the laws and the punishments of said laws. By supporting the Death Penalty you are putting a killswitch in the hands of those that govern. Now I'm not coming at this from a paranoid perspective, I don't believe many countries (in the west at least) would abuse this. However, I strongly oppose that degree of power in a governing body (the power to kill that is), purely on ideological grounds (though the threat of abuse is a possibility, even if improbable). This is the same power Dictators and Totalitarian governments have.

I once heard someone suggest a "democratic death penalty", where the public vote on its use in a case by case basis. I think that is a far worse idea.

*Many Countries that support the death penalty, enforce it under cases of Treason. Since the Snowden case I've been especially disconcerted about this fact. Treason is implicit protection of the governing powers. If a person can be accused of treason for revealing damaging information to a public under corrupt governance, the power to execute under these conditions is a terrifying display of Orwellian control.

On top of all that, I feel much of modern crime and punishment still operates under an archaic "Good vs Evil" ethical code. I don't believe in such a black and white breakdown of anything related to society, this includes criminals. There are influences acting on these people that make them become what they are.

The Death Penalty, in this light, is as good for society as a lobotomy is to a mentally ill patient.