Serious Death Penalty

brightobject

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I mean whether or not the death penalty is MORAL or not is not something I really want to get into (personally I support it, but whatever) - the problem is that at least in America, death sentences aren't even carried out effectively, with huge waiting lists and botched executions across the board.

I mean, if you're going to do something, do it right or don't do it at all is what I'm saying.
 
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Coronis

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Personally, I oppose the death penalty in all forms, as I believe the only time when its appropriate to kill someone is if they try to kill you, or are trying to kill somebody else, and its the only way to stop them. Capital punishment is just unnecessary and inherently wrong.

Though in parts of the world where it is legal, it needs to be done as quickly and painlessly as possible. I mean ffs, we had two Aussies locked up in Bali for 9 years or so before getting executed, which is just ridiculous. (also on drug charges? i would've thought only murder would call for a death penalty where they have it but apparently not)
 

DM

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I mean whether or not the death penalty is MORAL or not is not something I really want to get into (personally I support it, but whatever) - the problem is that at least in America, death sentences aren't even carried out effectively, with huge waiting lists and botched executions across the board.

I mean, if you're going to do something, do it right or don't do it at all is what I'm saying.
Not really sure what you mean. If by "waiting lists" you mean "the defendants are exhausting all their available appeals", then yes, there are waiting lists. Also, aside from the movie The Green Mile, there are no "botched executions" across the board. Is there evidence showing that lethal injections are incredibly painful? Yes, but those prisoners still die. Execution = successful.

If you're going to say we don't do it correctly, you should probably point to the disproportionate number of black men who are sentenced to death.
 
The alternative to the "death penalty" is not "life in prison" in the worst sense of the term. I don't see why governments can't try to remove those other nasty alternatives along with the death penalty itself. I'm not super-familiar with this stuff, but it seemed to me like some places have succeeded in doing this (I suppose this is something to discuss later). The problem is when people keep supporting "tough on crime" initiatives that make matters worse, and that happens because of dehumanization.

The idea, I suppose, is that there's some kind of goalpost that, if crossed, justifies us not considering you as a human. The problem is that it's just too easy to move that goalpost without even noticing due to cognitive/cultural biases. You can laugh when Donald Trump says, "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Yet look at the people defending him, and look at the people who support him and/or his defenders. That's a lot of people who are to some extent convinced or affirmed in a sort of belief that Mexican immigrants aren't really quite "people" who are deserving of a good life or even life at all.

Despite all this, we're so insistent on drawing goalposts that we're even willing to make claims like, "The victims family would have justice and will no longer have aggravated feelings and thoughts of revenge, society won't have to fear that whatever criminal enterprise or knowledge the criminal had would be passed on to others." I don't see how any of this would necessarily be the case, never mind uniquely so for the death penalty option. I also can't get behind claims like "they are most likely mentally unstable and/or evil and will always cause problems regardless of where they are" as that kind of thinking just shifts the blame to mental illness and that just contributes to the stigma of mental illness.

Lastly, people keep saying, oh, we should only reserve the death penalty for when we're sure and the crime is particularly bad but those are just idealized scenarios. Lines of reasoning like "If we can clean up this issue, i fully support the death penalty" are just not realistic, akin to suggesting that communism would work if only it were handled by a leader with perfect information, perfect empathy, no personal incentives, etc. or that anarcho-capitalism would work if only people were good at serving their own best interests. We humans are simply too flawed and limited to get everything satisfactorily right when it comes to fairly judging criminal suspects.
 
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brightobject

there like moonlight
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Not really sure what you mean. If by "waiting lists" you mean "the defendants are exhausting all their available appeals", then yes, there are waiting lists. Also, aside from the movie The Green Mile, there are no "botched executions" across the board. Is there evidence showing that lethal injections are incredibly painful? Yes, but those prisoners still die. Execution = successful.

If you're going to say we don't do it correctly, you should probably point to the disproportionate number of black men who are sentenced to death.
As you said. And it can take years for anyone to exhaust all possible appeals, no matter whether they're guilty/ not-guilty, as long as they're not some high-profile case that needs fast-tracking.

By botched executions I mean executions that went wrong. Yeah they die--eventually (e.g. Clayton Lockett, who died after forty-three agony-filled minutes), when ideally lethal injections are supposed to kill quickly and painlessly. I'm pretty sure if we intended for them to have a painful death through injection it would become cruel and unusual punishment.

And of course discrimination is a problem too! Basically what I'm trying to say is our system for actually executing people is screwed up. I don't know whether it's right to actually execute people, but...
 
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tehy

Banned deucer.
The alternative to the "death penalty" is not "life in prison" in the worst sense of the term. I don't see why governments can't try to remove those other nasty alternatives along with the death penalty itself. I'm not super-familiar with this stuff, but it seemed to me like some places have succeeded in doing this (I suppose this is something to discuss later). The problem is when people keep supporting "tough on crime" initiatives that make matters worse, and that happens because of dehumanization.
i'm genuinely curious to know what the alternative is to death or life imprisonment

the above sentence might come off as sarcastic, it isn't. if there's some real alternative, let's hear it !

capefeather said:
The idea, I suppose, is that there's some kind of goalpost that, if crossed, justifies us not considering you as a human. The problem is that it's just too easy to move that goalpost without even noticing due to cognitive/cultural biases. You can laugh when Donald Trump says, "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Yet look at the people defending him, and look at the people who support him and/or his defenders. That's a lot of people who are to some extent convinced or affirmed in a sort of belief that Mexican immigrants aren't really quite "people" who are deserving of a good life or even life at all.

Despite all this, we're so insistent on drawing goalposts that we're even willing to make claims like, "The victims family would have justice and will no longer have aggravated feelings and thoughts of revenge, society won't have to fear that whatever criminal enterprise or knowledge the criminal had would be passed on to others." I don't see how any of this would necessarily be the case, never mind uniquely so for the death penalty option. I also can't get behind claims like "they are most likely mentally unstable and/or evil and will always cause problems regardless of where they are" as that kind of thinking just shifts the blame to mental illness and that just contributes to the stigma of mental illness.

Lastly, people keep saying, oh, we should only reserve the death penalty for when we're sure and the crime is particularly bad but those are just idealized scenarios. Lines of reasoning like "If we can clean up this issue, i fully support the death penalty" are just not realistic, akin to suggesting that communism would work if only it were handled by a leader with perfect information, perfect empathy, no personal incentives, etc. or that anarcho-capitalism would work if only people were good at serving their own best interests. We humans are simply too flawed and limited to get everything satisfactorily right when it comes to fairly judging criminal suspects.
Well, I consider a murderer to be not 'human' or at least not worthy of my most basic respect. I have no problem with punishing them even to a high degree. I definitely believe there are evil people who can't be solved some other way.

I personally think the victim's family should have a large say in the punishment. If it's all about their feelings, then let's hear their individual feelings each time, instead of some paint-by-numbers assumption about how most people feel.

ultimately we need some kind of immigration reform. Maybe we should just figure out what Mexico's problem(s) is (are) and solve it (them). This goes for most of latin america too. Maybe we can just get really good genetically modified crops to get them all as much food as they need, get a good police force, and let them work it out by themselves?
 

Coronis

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Essentially you're saying that it is only ok to kill someone in self-defense or in defense of another person. So because a murderer was not stopped while the murder was occurring, they should not be killed? Someone who has successfully murdered is worse than someone who has tried to murder and failed, yet in your eyes the one who is not yet successful is the only one who should be killed. This is odd.
Yes. Because if you do indeed succeed in stopping the murderer by killing him (though hopefully not having to resort to this) you have actually accomplished something, saving your own, or another's life. Life is the most precious thing on this Earth, as far as I'm concerned. What is achieved by killing someone after the act? Nothing more than another dead body.

What I never understood was someones moral backing to "The death penalty is inherently wrong". Lets say some person stabs a man to death in broad daylight, caught on camera, seen by hundreds of people, doesn't even bother running. Just owns up to killing this person. Obviously a lot of murder cases are not this obvious and clean-cut, but Id like an answer regardless. What is the moral justification in not taking the life of someone who does not have the moral standards to not murder?
Because nobody has the right to take another's life. That's my personal moral stance.
 

Kinneas

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What I never understood was someones moral backing to "The death penalty is inherently wrong". Lets say some person stabs a man to death in broad daylight, caught on camera, seen by hundreds of people, doesn't even bother running. Just owns up to killing this person. Obviously a lot of murder cases are not this obvious and clean-cut, but Id like an answer regardless. What is the moral justification in not taking the life of someone who does not have the moral standards to not murder?
If it is wrong for one man to kill another, it is equally wrong for all men to kill one, no matter who he is. To engage in such behaviour is degrading to society.

Desmond Tutu said "To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice."

As a society we should not be interested in revenge because we are better than that, I hope.
 

Coronis

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Except we aren't better than that. People have been "degrading society" for all of human history. Look at war. The instance of war has lowered in terms of quantity, but it is clear that as a society we are not above war. War and genocide are just mass scale murder.

Justice and revenge are also not mutually exclusive.
No, we aren't at this point, but we should be.

Death is not a form of justice.
 
i'm genuinely curious to know what the alternative is to death or life imprisonment

the above sentence might come off as sarcastic, it isn't. if there's some real alternative, let's hear it !
"Life imprisonment" is an extremely general term. All it entails is that someone is in government custody for some maximum length of time allowed by law. This is why I added "in the worst sense of the term". But maybe, judging by the rest of your post, what you really mean is you just really want the worst punishment possible and people in this thread have yet to explain why this must be the case beyond some petty desire for revenge/"justice" and/or brazen blanket assumptions about how people handle tragedy. In that respect, quite frankly, your blanket statements are boring and show you haven't given any serious thought to any of the issues you bring up here.
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
"Life imprisonment" is an extremely general term. All it entails is that someone is in government custody for some maximum length of time allowed by law. This is why I added "in the worst sense of the term". But maybe, judging by the rest of your post, what you really mean is you just really want the worst punishment possible and people in this thread have yet to explain why this must be the case beyond some petty desire for revenge/"justice" and/or brazen blanket assumptions about how people handle tragedy.
man, i used to have some respect for you but you're killing what i had left...

is there an alternative to killing people or locking them up in jail for the rest of their lives? that's basically what your post seemed to imply and what I asked. Judging by the rest of my post, i'm fucking curious...

the people who are affected by a murder, the family and friends, are the actual victims, so it'd be nice to hear from them about how it'd make them feel. If i can make bereaved people feel much better, then i'm willing to go to some lengths, like say killing a murderer.

capefeather said:
In that respect, quite frankly, your blanket statements are boring and show you haven't given any serious thought to any of the issues you bring up here.
blanket statement 1:murderers are evil

a very, very, very simple concept I didn't need to give any thought to. Anyone who believes ending someone else's life for some emotional or other kind of gain is acceptable, is not someone whose death would cause me to shed a tear. They're evil, and not necessarily solvable. (obviously only first-degree)

blanket statement 2: a victim's family should have a large say in the matter

well, duh. Most of these people's points revolve around how the victim's family -would- feel. But we could actually just ask them.

it might cause arguments within the family or feelings of causing that person's death, so I won't deny it could backfire. But it's not a suggestion without merit.

blanket statement 3: we need to solve mexico's problems

true, i haven't given that much thought to this, because it'd require a shit-ton of research and i'm not necessarily interested in doing it. But really, we know Mexico and most latin american countries have a shit ton of problems, like drug gangs, rampant poverty, corruption, general shittiness...what are the roots of these problems? let's find them and work actively to solve them. that seems like the policy u.s. should be actively taking





i have no personal stake in the matter one way or the other. i'm not a damn partisan. to me, better argument wins... and you guys are losing pretty hard right now. maybe go back to focusing on the economic aspects, as there seems to be some favorable data there. (studies showed that executions are expensive, but i couldn't manage to find a study that compared the expected cost of locking that prisoner up all his life.)
 
is there an alternative to killing people or locking them up in jail for the rest of their lives? that's basically what your post seemed to imply and what I asked. Judging by the rest of my post, i'm fucking curious...
Like I implied in my other posts, there is more than one kind of "life in prison". In Canada, first-degree murder automatically gives you 25 years without parole. I've heard that in one or more Scandanavian countries, criminals in government custody are treated pretty humanely, no need for suicide watch, really, but again, I'm not terribly familiar with the details. My original point was that the people in this thread were only talking about one kind of "life in prison" involving isolation on a regular basis and just general neglect.
blanket statement 2: a victim's family should have a large say in the matter

well, duh. Most of these people's points revolve around how the victim's family -would- feel. But we could actually just ask them.
This is a terrible idea as it is essentially vigilantism (plus who is "a victim's family"??). Keep in mind, I'm not the one who made assumptions about the victim's family or other loved ones.

blanket statement 1:murderers are evil

a very, very, very simple concept I didn't need to give any thought to. Anyone who believes ending someone else's life for some emotional or other kind of gain is acceptable, is not someone whose death would cause me to shed a tear. They're evil, and not necessarily solvable. (obviously only first-degree)
You do realize that this also describes you?

The entertainment industry, for all its faults, has provided us with plenty of scenarios under which we are made to sympathize with a character's quest to murder someone else. Sure, it's fiction; I don't have much of a habit of delving into why real people plan to kill someone. All the same, humans don't suddenly cease to be complicated individuals once they commit such a heinous crime. Ultimately, my problem with "murders are evil" is that it's meaningless. It explains nothing, it accomplishes nothing, and thus has no more useful application than, say, the Abrahamic concept of sin. All it is is a restatement of your lack of empathy for the situation. And as I've pointed out in my other posts, meaningless descriptors intended to dehumanize can have devastating consequences.

How can you say that anyone is "winning" or "losing" when you really haven't even made an argument at all? All you've done is restate your opinion and go on some weird tangent about solving Mexico's problems. There is no winning or losing here. If you like repeating your own lack of empathy to yourself in forum post form, that's great, but I don't care.
 

Kinneas

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blanket statement 1:murderers are evil

a very, very, very simple concept I didn't need to give any thought to. Anyone who believes ending someone else's life for some emotional or other kind of gain is acceptable, is not someone whose death would cause me to shed a tear. They're evil, and not necessarily solvable. (obviously only first-degree)
Unfortunately things are never this black and white. I refer you to the case of Charles Whitman, a former US Marine who murdered sixteen people, including his own wife and mother. His actions were premeditated. As stark an evil as you can get, right? Certainly not someone you should shed a tear for.

He wrote in his journal before committing the murders asking for a post mortem to be performed on his brain because he couldn't understand why he was suddenly overcome with inexplicable rages and an urge to kill.

Charles Whitman's autopsy revealed a giant tumour in his brain that was almost certainly the cause of his rages and lack of impulse control that led him to commit the mass murders.

He was killed by the police, but had he not been, he would almost certainly have been put to death for his crimes. Knowing now what we know about the tumour, and seeing the journal entries stating how he was sorry for what he was about to do but could not control himself, do you still consider him an evil person? Would a death sentence here serve any real purpose other than to satiate some primitive lust for revenge felt by relatives of the victims?

I personally think the victim's family should have a large say in the punishment. If it's all about their feelings, then let's hear their individual feelings each time, instead of some paint-by-numbers assumption about how most people feel.
I don't understand this at all, could you explain it? Are you saying that the family of the victim should get to decide if a person should be put to death and how? Like the criminal justice system is some kind of game show where the guilty loser has to do a wacky forfeit? You can't seriously be suggesting putting the power of life and death in the hands of traumatized family members of the victim?
 

tehy

Banned deucer.
Like I implied in my other posts, there is more than one kind of "life in prison". In Canada, first-degree murder automatically gives you 25 years without parole. I've heard that in one or more Scandanavian countries, criminals in government custody are treated pretty humanely, no need for suicide watch, really, but again, I'm not terribly familiar with the details. My original point was that the people in this thread were only talking about one kind of "life in prison" involving isolation on a regular basis and just general neglect.This is a terrible idea as it is essentially vigilantism (plus who is "a victim's family"??). Keep in mind, I'm not the one who made assumptions about the victim's family or other loved ones.

You do realize that this also describes you?

The entertainment industry, for all its faults, has provided us with plenty of scenarios under which we are made to sympathize with a character's quest to murder someone else. Sure, it's fiction; I don't have much of a habit of delving into why real people plan to kill someone. All the same, humans don't suddenly cease to be complicated individuals once they commit such a heinous crime. Ultimately, my problem with "murders are evil" is that it's meaningless. It explains nothing, it accomplishes nothing, and thus has no more useful application than, say, the Abrahamic concept of sin. All it is is a restatement of your lack of empathy for the situation. And as I've pointed out in my other posts, meaningless descriptors intended to dehumanize can have devastating consequences.

How can you say that anyone is "winning" or "losing" when you really haven't even made an argument at all? All you've done is restate your opinion and go on some weird tangent about solving Mexico's problems. There is no winning or losing here. If you like repeating your own lack of empathy to yourself in forum post form, that's great, but I don't care.

So your original point is just that you can have a life in prison that's more humane than ours? or that you don't necessarily need a life in prison?

1: The main problems with vigilantism are

A:against the law (in this case it wouldn't be)

B: involve ordinary citizens getting involved in things they shouldn't (i argue they should be)

2: Not really. I'm just fine with a person dying for comitting horrible crimes. I wouldn't do it myself and I get no real personal gain from it-i just have no problem with it either. Sure, by my allowance of this i'm contributing a tiny share, but nowhere near what a murderer does. And unlike a murderer, I have much more legitimate reasons to do so-subjective, but 99.9% of the population agrees. (not even places like nazi germany had such widespread acceptance, and also involved disagreers being killed, so don't throw that shit at me)

3: the weird tangent was in response to your mention of trump.

4: good thing I pointed out that i'm non-partisan and simply reading arguments I see overall, and then stated that, by what i'm seeing, death penalty is winning. sure, I could be lying about it, but it's a reasonable statement to make and, even if i'm lying, what do you care?

Unfortunately things are never this black and white. I refer you to the case of Charles Whitman, a former US Marine who murdered sixteen people, including his own wife and mother. His actions were premeditated. As stark an evil as you can get, right? Certainly not someone you should shed a tear for.

He wrote in his journal before committing the murders asking for a post mortem to be performed on his brain because he couldn't understand why he was suddenly overcome with inexplicable rages and an urge to kill.

Charles Whitman's autopsy revealed a giant tumour in his brain that was almost certainly the cause of his rages and lack of impulse control that led him to commit the mass murders.

He was killed by the police, but had he not been, he would almost certainly have been put to death for his crimes. Knowing now what we know about the tumour, and seeing the journal entries stating how he was sorry for what he was about to do but could not control himself, do you still consider him an evil person? Would a death sentence here serve any real purpose other than to satiate some primitive lust for revenge felt by relatives of the victims?



I don't understand this at all, could you explain it? Are you saying that the family of the victim should get to decide if a person should be put to death and how? Like the criminal justice system is some kind of game show where the guilty loser has to do a wacky forfeit? You can't seriously be suggesting putting the power of life and death in the hands of traumatized family members of the victim?

i think things often are that black and white, and that this case is perhaps the exception.

you're trying to establish an equivalency between other external factors and tumors, I believe? (not insulting you, it's a great point to bring up). to me the difference is that tumors clearly entered the body and changed him from what he was previously, whereas the other kinds of external factors are there from the beginning and far more difficult to distinguish, as well as easier to mitigate. Additionally, i don't think you can cure a murderer.

as to the second, well, my point was more that the policies are supposedly to give the families what they want, but they could just be asked. Still, now that i think, i can't think of a way to get their opinions on the matter without some serious negative factors, so I guess it's a bad idea after all
 
I am curious as to how all of you currently perceive or believe what the prison system should stand for. Do you think its main goal should be to punish, to quarantine, to rehabilitate? A mixture of the three?
A mixture of the three, however in this discussion we're discussing people who will never again be part of the community. Therefore rehabilitation is irrelevant, and punishment is as well, since the purpose of punishment is to serve as a deterrent to undesirable behaviour- if they're not going to get an opportunity to do anything bad then it serves no purpose.

The whole notion of causing someone to suffer on the grounds that they "deserve it" is morally reprehensible imo, since it accomplishes literally nothing beyond that- no good comes of it.
 
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UncleSam

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Unfortunately things are never this black and white. I refer you to the case of Charles Whitman, a former US Marine who murdered sixteen people, including his own wife and mother. His actions were premeditated. As stark an evil as you can get, right? Certainly not someone you should shed a tear for.

He wrote in his journal before committing the murders asking for a post mortem to be performed on his brain because he couldn't understand why he was suddenly overcome with inexplicable rages and an urge to kill.

Charles Whitman's autopsy revealed a giant tumour in his brain that was almost certainly the cause of his rages and lack of impulse control that led him to commit the mass murders.

He was killed by the police, but had he not been, he would almost certainly have been put to death for his crimes. Knowing now what we know about the tumor, and seeing the journal entries stating how he was sorry for what he was about to do but could not control himself, do you still consider him an evil person? Would a death sentence here serve any real purpose other than to satiate some primitive lust for revenge felt by relatives of the victims?
I'm sorry, but he was an evil person. Just because a medical procedure may or may not have caused a massive change in his behavior for the better does not change this fact. We could lobotomize someone who has violent urges they cannot control and that will also improve their behavior, but would that make what the person did any more acceptable? Would you say that just because we can diagnose what we suspect to be what is wrong with a person's brain that causes them to commit atrocities then that diagnosis suddenly changes whether that person is evil or not? In other words, if we get an advanced enough understanding of the brain to the point where we could eliminate violent impulses in anyone by altering their brains, would you say that people are no longer evil?

Given that the norm is to not violently murder masses of innocent people, I'd argue that it is obvious anyone who does so has something wrong with them. Maybe it is 'their fault' or maybe it was 'their parents' (honestly if someone's biology caused them to have violent impulses it's arguable that their parents did it to them in either case; no extent of childhood abuse/bad genes/medical conditions justifies behavior of this kind), but regardless there is something wrong with someone who behaves in this manner, the question is just whether we possess the technological means to fix it and still keep that person as an active contributor to society.

I agree however, that given the 'practical' nature of the death penalty, such a condition ought to be taken into account in punishment. While no less of an evil person and not justified in his actions, I would argue that there is never a justification to execute Mr. Whitman simply because there is a reasonable chance we can rehabilitate him.

Whether or not someone is evil or wrong to do something is distinct from how we, as a society, ought to punish that action. The death penalty can fundamentally only serve three purposes:
1. To eliminate a threat to others that could not reasonably be dealt with by other available means.
2. To act as a deterrent to future criminals.
3. To provide families/friends of victims with closure/justice/insert-substitute-for-'revenge'-here.

I reject purpose 3 in all cases, and based on the available data purpose 2 seems to be mostly worthless from what I understand but I am going to link two arguments citing seemingly opposing studies; I'm more or less certain that everyone will just say that the one they disagree with the results of (which is a really silly attitude to take when approaching a study by the way) is 'biased' in some way. Anyhow, this is an argument that the death penalty does not act as a deterrent and this is an argument for the opposite. Logically I would think that the death penalty would act as a minor deterrent but most likely not noticeable enough to make a statistically significant difference, but this is purely my intuition and based on only a cursory reading of the available information.

Anyhow, the point is that I feel that the death penalty can really only stand on purpose 1. As a result, I feel that in the case Kinneas brought up, Mr. Whitman ought not have been executed had he been captured alive. However, I feel that this is different from in any way excusing his actions by a medical condition, as any criminal arguably has a 'medical condition' which we simply lack the capacity to diagnose.
 
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IMO, if someone is thouroughly evil and unsalvagable, they should be killed. I don't care how uncivilized it is, if they commit a crime as bad as murder (especially with no reason) or rape they can die and rot in hell for all I care. If the person is genuinely sorry for their actions, fine, jail them and let them come out later. If they are not sorry/are a repeat offendef for p.much any crime, they are a bad person who should be dead. There are people dying in poor countries from lack of food/clean water while we preserve criminal's lives who don't care about anyone but themselves. I think we should kill these people and think of the people who are frankly a waste of space.

It may be hard to judge who is sorry and who isn't, and some innocent people will inevitably be killed, but innocent people who die young die due to lack of essential needs we give to remorseless criminals, which is unforgivable for me.
 

LeoLancaster

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This might be a bit of a left-fielder, but I don't think the moral questions surrounding the death pentalty need to be relevant to the justice system. Regardless of the morality of the DP, the justice system should be, well, providing justice. And to do that, there are three options (not mutually exclusive):

1) Punishment
2) Rehabilitation
3) Restoration

The first one is obvious, if someone commits a crime they should be penalized for it. The second is fine for all but the worst offenses, and in minor cases (like speeding) punishment does enough usually. The third I don't see talked about often in debates like this one, but it's the most important imo. Basically, if someone commits a crime that actually takes something from society (stealing, murder, etc.) then they should have to restore what they took. Obviously this is easy for theft (they just return the money/valuables/etc., I know there's complications but it's still relatively simple), but a murderer can't bring their victim back to life. Note that this idea of restoration isn't revenge; the perpetrator of a theft isn't losing any property he already had, only returning what he took. Because the death penalty doesn't restore the life, just takes another one away, it doesn't fit the criteria of restoration. But, life in prison (assuming no parole) doesn't restore the victim's life either, and effectively removes the murderer's life anyway because they provide nothing to society after the point of incarceration. Thus, the ideal solution is to have prisoners do something to provide back to society in some way. This could take any number of forms, be it farming, community service, etc. It's true that this doesn't directly restore what the murderer took, but nothing can do that. And beyond DP cases, more justice would be had from prisoners for any crime.

Basically, the death penalty may or may not be morally right, but that's irrelevant if we want a justice system that actually does something for society beyond protection.
 
And you're fine with that?
Innocent people die all the time due to murders, so while it's obvious BS if someone innocent dies by death penalty, other murder cases will usually be an innocent person dying at the hands of an evil or insane person, which is just as bad. TBH if I was wrongly convicted of murder I'd rather die than have life inprisonment w/o parole, which is just pointless torture.

It's human error. No one can get 100% of things right, and it's just the same for judges of death penalty cases.
 

Coronis

Impressively round
is a Battle Simulator Moderator Alumnus
Innocent people die all the time due to murders, so while it's obvious BS if someone innocent dies by death penalty, other murder cases will usually be an innocent person dying at the hands of an evil or insane person, which is just as bad. TBH if I was wrongly convicted of murder I'd rather die than have life inprisonment w/o parole, which is just pointless torture.

It's human error. No one can get 100% of things right, and it's just the same for judges of death penalty cases.
Ah, but if there was no death penalty, no innocent people would die as a result of being wrongly convicted, would they? Then they may also get to appeal, and be acquitted.
 
Ah, but if there was no death penalty, no innocent people would die as a result of being wrongly convicted, would they? Then they may also get to appeal, and be acquitted.
They might not die of being wrongly convicted, but they could die of murderers escaping prison and murdering again, or even murderers getting parole and murdering again. If the murderer is dead, the can't kill again, but if they are imprisoned, it is possible for them to kill again if they get let out or escape.
 
The country I live in, Australia, has a rather peculiar system that may not be obvious at first sight.

The death penalty is obviously not carried out here, and the police, etc. are actually quite liberal and not as strict. However, the people and media in Australia have a strong influence. If a murderer that was convicted 20 or 30 years ago is about to leave jail, the media (especially A Current Affair) would immediately regurgitate the footage and conviction of the murderer, and the victim's family would issue statements, and then hordes of people on social media would sympathise with the victim's family, and the murderer would go back to jail. If a murderer is found innocent, due to persistence by the media and the murderer's family to start up the case, the government would immediately issue a formal apology and treat the murderer very nicely. Therefore, having an innocent person being kept forever in jail is very rare.

Australia has a good system, in which the people and the media have a strong influence, and this system is certainly much better than the death penalty. Imo this is my opinion on a good alternative to the death penalty, and you're free to correct or criticise me, I may be wrong.
 

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