The prisons are full

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While I am a strong propronent of the death penalty, I do believe it has been used in circumstances where it is inappropriate. The death penalty is only appropriate in cases where there is truly no shadow of a doubt and the evidence is so clear cut that even a moron has no choice but to acknowledge it. In these cases I'm all in favor of Vhailor's express lane. As an example, a bank robber shoots one of his hostages in full sight of all of the other hostages and the bank's cameras record it. However, without those conditions, it is too risky to put someone to death.

 

No, I was just interested in hearing your defination of Jusice which socrates often did.
If a law is unjust it will be changed.
Perfection? If there is a new way I will be the first in line but our current system is the best we have.

 

A bit offtopic but somehow I find it incredibly funny seeing a guy named Vhailor explaining the virtues of death penalty. I'm just waiting for the "mercy is for the weak, justice is strenght" comments.

 

Vhailor:

Unless you would like to admit that you have made a mistake somewhere, you are holding that a law which is capable of wrongly convicting, and killing, an innocent should not be changed and is therefore not unjust. I suspect that most of the members here will have similar definitions of justice; perhaps it is your's that needs further examination. Care to share your definition and explain how you are capable of maintaining both the quoted sentences at the same time?

 

Ok, we shouldn't abolish the death penalty. if a law is really unjust(number of appeals for example would be debatable). Although the death penalty should not be given lightly but once given should be fulfilled.
My definition of Justice is everyone getting what they deserve.

Or is Justice the advantage of the stronger?(rulers)
rulers make the laws to benefit themselves, then
rulers declare their laws are just.

 

This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

I have to admit that I lost no sleep when they executed Ted Bundy. I lost no sleep when they executed Tim McVeigh. That said, I simply do not trust our Judges and Juries to implement the death penalty only in cases of exceptional heinousness where the guilt is inarguable. I've seem too many instances in which juries grossly over- or under-estimated the strength of the evidence and arguments presented. Since the death penalty isn't necessary to have the rule of law, since it hasn't been shown to deter violent crime any more than life in prison, and since you can't release a dead man from prison, I would be much more comfortable with banning it outright.

 

If you are right, and there is no afterlife, that's an even stronger arguement for the death penalty--to completely destroy the worst of criminals.

Then there should be a tribunal or something to determine this. At least this way they get something heard so their trial is audited for fairness. But after that, they are to serve their sentence unless new evidence is actually found.

Why not scrap the whole justice system because someone screwed up? Society cannot function under such paranoia...

But for those who have not yet been sentenced, this is an option, thus reducing the future strain on the penal system.

You talk like this is some great problem, and that courts are incompetent. You talk like no trial is ever fair or any defendant ever truly guilty. If the laws are followed, and investigators diligent, an innocent person should not be wrongly convicted, nor a guilty man acquitted. Can this not be assumed?

There would be no presumption of guilt until after the conviction. Innocent until PROVEN guilty. Then we have the right to assume that the convict was guillty as proven...

Well put. This is what I'm trying to get at. Guilt is obvious and proven...

And I'd lose no sleep over the death of anyone properly convicted after due diligence in investigation of any crime where there is no chance of release into society. I believe it more humane than locking them in a cage for the rest of their lives.

Excuse me, but I thought conviction meant proof beyond any and all doubt. Therefore, a convict has to be assumed to be guilty. I'm not buying it...

 

You seem to misunderstand the purpose of our appellate process. Without supreme court appeals, police would not, for example, be required to advise people they arrest of their rights, nor would they be required to use a translator to ensure that the person understands those rights as read to them. Appeals serve a very important purpose. Without cases like Miranda's reaching the highest courts, police would still be using "coercive interrogation" to get confessions. They still would be denying people their constitutional right to an attorney. No, thank you, I'd rather keep the appellate system as it was originally designed to work.

Perhaps you do. If you are convicted of murder, feel free to request an execution.

What planet do you live on again? A guilty verdict is reached when guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Even with that crystal clear standard*, we still have an alarming number of innocents being found guilty in court every year. Most of these innocent people, surprisingly enough, would prefer not to be killed for crimes they didn't commit and not to be denied their constitutional right to appeal to the highest court in the land - exhausting each and every legal remedy available - in the hopes of overturning their wrongful conviction.

Incidentally, your pie-in-the-sky interpretation of the meaning of a guilty verdict perfectly illustrates why I cannot trust Judges and Juries to implement the death penalty only in cases where the guilt is inarguable. Not all people who are found guilty are guilty. Not all people who are found not guilty are innocent. This is the world in which we live. To ignore this reality is to live in a fantasy land.

* that was sarcasm

 

Then why not have a tribunal to audit trials in capital cases. If it is as open and shut as it seems, then send the person to their death, but if there was something wrong with the trial or some question as tot he absolute nature of guilt, then the death penalty should not be handed down in the first place, and the Tribunal could correct this. But enough of this mistrust of the legal system.

But it's been proven, therefore, it then falls to the convicted to prove that there was evidence ignored or that someone lied. Furthermore, a Tribunal could overrule a death sentence if the evidence is as questionable as you suggest.

Then that needs to be fixed. Investigations need to be more vigilant, trials need to be examined more closely, juries need to be trained better, whatever is contributing to innocent people being convicted. But I for one don't like the idea of dragging out a death sentence for 20 years because people are too scared of killing an innocent person...

 

i'm all for capital punishment. a murderer will do it again if he's let loose. the public needs to be protected from him. and i can't discount revenge for the victims. i know if someone murders my wife, if the police catch him before i do, i'm going to want to watch him die. if they let me, i'll throw the switch that kills him

while i'm not against filing an appeal, i feel it should be done in a short amount of time. i have no desire to have my tax dollars used to support a murderer for 20 years.i can agree some things about the legal system are wrong, but it's the only system we have. there has to be a way to protect the public from criminals without tax payers having to support them for decades. but i think the biggest question is: how do we change things? and the second biggest question is: what do we change them to?

 

More than two. Those are the main touristy ones. Wikipedia says that there were, at the last count (1980?) 3,155 glaciers with an area of at least one hectare (2.5 acres), in the South Island, and six in the North Island.

Anyway, on to the topic:

Capital Punishment = Murder with a fancy name.

It would be interesting to see the relationship between capital punishment supporters and those who claim to be 'pro-life' on the abortion issue.

Capital Punishment is a complete disregard for the value of human life. Sure, been caged up in a high security prison for ever probably isn't much of a life, but it IS a life. To deprive people of that - the one truely inalienable right - is playing god, and a bloody inhumane god at that. To losely quote lord of the rings (although I shudder at doing so) "not even the wisest amoung us can judge who should live and who should die" and to be honest, I very much doubt any one here would claim the status as the 'wisest amoung us'. I don't see how someone can seriously suggest a person should be dead. It's a sad reflection on this 'modern' society.

The solution to over crowded prisons isn't more (carried out) death sentences. Even if you double the number of current death penalties, the impact it would make on the over population of prisons is microsopic. Aim instead for rehabilitation and prevention. Target the youth and parents and you will see major changes. Encourage birth controls and provide cheap (if not free) abortions and you will see an even bigger change.

 

I'm all for speeding up the appeals process as this serves the accused every bit as much as it serves the populace. To do that, though, it isn't necessary to invent new processes to add into the mix. All that really needs doing is capping prep time for appeals and, if necessary, creating additional appeals courts. Actually hearing an appeal takes very little time. What slows things down is the various legal teams stalling for time or the courts themselves being backed up.

Obviously we need to constantly be improving on the process, but we will never reach a point at which all those found guilty are actually guilty and all those found not guilty are truly innocent. This is the ideal, but it is an impossible ideal. Therefore, we must always account for the fact that some people in our prison system are not actually guilty.

 

Do not be so quick to pass judgement; murdering once does not mean that person will do so again. I would be inclined to say that there is a reasonable chance that murders are commonly carried out due to a relationship between the murderer and the murdered. Now that they are dead, whatever the problem was is likely to have gone- especially after the large amount of time spent in jail has passed. Most murderers don't just kill randomly because they happen to feel like it.

Objection!

 

Correction: Capital Punishment is a complete disregard for the value of a person's life who has previously shown a complete disregard for the value of another person's life. Personally, I also think the terms "cruel and unusual" should be judged based on the murderer's actions. 'Death by Drano' should be quite appropriate to a murderer who shoved Drano down his victims throat (actual case in Utah, a man forced a couple of children to swallow Drano).

I believe a death penalty should have a date -- and that date should be kept regardless of appeals. I also feel a life sentence should be a short sentence.

I have no compassion for most criminals.

You do make an interesting point about supporting capital punishment versus supporting abortion -- usually those are polar opposites in the political spectrum. I'm both pro-choice and pro-capital punishment.

 

Heh. I'm just the opposite. I'm pro-life and against capital punishment, though I feel that both sides of both arguments actually make some very valid points. It's a shame that we so often allow partisan politics to get in the way of meaningful discussion and progress on both of these issues.

 

Imprisonment = kidnapping with a fancy name.

Well, there's probably a better analogue, but the point is simply that every justice system I'm familiar with involves a certain degree of 'do as I say, not as I do' and, ah, necessary evil.

Which is not to defend executions per se, but to point out that a different critique is needed.

 

Simple. The unborn child has committed no crime, thus aborting him, other things being equal, is akin to murder, where as the death penalty is reserved for duly convicted criminals who's crimes make them the worst of offenders. In most cases, this is reserved for first degree murder or high treason.

Only the life of the condemned...

But we cannot paralyse the system for that fear...

But at what cost? Would this not create more problems with the living that cared for the murdered victim? Someone murders someone I love, that may solve the problem with the one murdered, but it creates problems with me. Does this justify me to kill them? If not, where is the justice? Shouldn't the state have the authority to end this with a simple execution?

 

Placing a moratorium on executions or, as many states have done, banning them outright hardly qualifies as paralyzing the system. Our prisons aren't over-crowded because we aren't executing people. Most of our prisoners have done nothing that would lead to the death penalty or even life in prison. If we want to reduce overcrowding, re-visiting drug sentencing would be a good start.

 

I find it striking that American conservatives don't trust the government to properly deliver their mail to their homes, but trust that it can be relied on to only execute the right guy.

My position on death penalty is that there are some who deserve this for their horrible deeds. Absolutely. But:

It is perfectly ok with me when the police kills a hostage taker when freeing the hostages, because he poses an imminent threat to the hostages and the police. What I have a problem with is to kill a criminal after he has been arrested and is imprisoned and no longer poses an imminent threat. This is cold blooded murder, not because it is 'no sport' in it, but because there is no more threat. A guy in prison is no threat to society any more, just as if he was dead. So killing him in order to remove a threat to society is excess.

The article of faith that the death penalty having a deterrent effect doesn't convince me either, because there is too much evidence to the contrary. It isn't as if Europe's murder rates jumped up after states abolished the death penalty, - just as if the idea that 'softer punishment' - life long prison vs. death - affects at all, or emboldens, a cold blooded murderer who expects to get away (and plans accordingly), or a criminal in a state of affect who doesn't think, or a creep who only pursues his urges. In a final bitter irony a cornered criminal who knows he would face death doesn't have a particularly convincing reason to keep his remaining victims alive. If he deliberates, silencing them in an attempt to later benefit from the in-dubio rule becomes attractive. The death penalty in such a scenario offers incentives for murder. He can only be killed once. Prison time for murder offers the criminal a 'golden bridge' that is not meant to protect him, but his victims.

Also, I feel intensely uncomfortable with cost-benefit calculations about human life. That is why I find utilitarian arguments like that 'murderers cost our money' unconvincing. So it is just about practical benefits, or money? So $ 25.000 per year for a criminal is too much, so let's rather kill him for just $ 12.500 and make quite a bargain? If we could cut costs to $ 500 a year, would you rather let him live then? What's the price you're willing to pay for the life of a murderer? Is there a price? What about the price to pay for a bank robber on a time sentence, who incidentally costs as much, or perhaps 30% less, per day as a murderer? What about the other utilitarian arguments, like that they occupy too much space in jail, and that they breathe too much air and eat too much food? Thinking of it aren't all criminals like rats, parasites that live large off the people and who are a threat to the health of the state? Don't they deserve to be annihilated, in self defence, or rather, retaliation? I distrust such language. I have read too many old questionable laws for such arguments to not be deeply suspect to me. It appears to me that the issue of cost, or utilitarian benefits is a rationalisation to justify a policy preferred for other goals, it isn't convincing at all, and in my eyes they're a side show that distracts from the real thing:

What we are left with is the idea of punishment for the deed, and there we approach a difference in philosophy (or broader: ideology). The idea of punishment is in my view the only convincing point that could possibly justify imposing the death penalty.

It leaves me where I began. There is a difference between what people deserve and what they get. **** happens. Murphy's law rules. People screw up. Man fails. Groups of men, juries fail. Repeatedly. What characterises a free society is the insight that this is so, and the safeguard against mistakes, or worse, callous disregard or intent, that can cost innocent lives - and in face of US imprisonment terms, like 99 years without parole, I don't think of putative future victims. I do not think that it is ok to execute even only one innocent guy in jail.

 

I need to re-visit this. I strongly disagree with this idea because it isn't necessarily the death row inmates fault if the appeals process is taking too long. You can't deny someone a constitutional right just because the court system is taking too much time to process its appeals. If we want faster executions, the way to do it is by speeding up the appeals process. Denying even a prisoner on death row a constitutionally granted right simply because the courts are backed up is not in keeping with the rule of law.