Death Sentence

Feel free to move this to the Debate Corner if it's more appropriate there, staff. c:

Anyway, what are your thoughts on execution? This is only under extreme circumstances that it's done, of course.

Personally, I'm all for punishing hardcore criminals, but I still think if you execute a human for, say, committing the highest degree of murder, you're doing to them what they did to others.

I dunno. I don't really like execution. Just jail them for life.

 

If somebody kills somebody out of entertainment, or just for the heck off it then I 100% agree. or some kind of serious murder.

 

I don't agree with the death penalty in the slightest. Ethically, it seems backwards to follow the "eye for an eye" mantra. At the end of the day, you're a killer too. Even the most extreme criminals, who have killed a number of people... we'd still be killing a living, breathing human being. Their actions may be deplorable, but nothing can ever take away their status as a human being. Not only that, but there are a number of stories of people who were sentenced to the death penalty, adamant that they were innocent. Denying a crime is no proof that you didn't commit it, but the death penalty is a decision you can't go back on.

That said, I believe in a person's right to end their life when they choose, in extreme situations. I believe that if someone is sentenced to life in prison for something like murder, they should be allowed to choose the death penalty.

 

I don't agree with this at all. A death sentence would just lessen their punishment. If someone committed a crime, then they should pay for it, with jail time. A death sentence would just end their punishment then and there. Life imprisonment is a better punishment for crimes which merit an execution. Another reason, like what Misty said, is that there are times when the accused didn't do the crime, but were mistakenly sentenced to death, and they only find out that he/she was innocent after that person was killed. At least with imprisonment, you can set them free, once they've been deemed innocent. It's not as easy to do that when their dead, now is it?

 

Instead of arguing against the death penalty from an ethical standpoint, I'll argue from a financial and economic standpoint because more people tend to listen when money is involved. Despite what most people may think, the death penalty is actually much more expensive than life without possibility of parole because most Constitutions require a long and complex judicial process for capital cases. This process is needed in order to ensure that innocent men and woman are not executed for crimes they did not commit. In California for example, the cost of the death penalty has totaled over $4 billion since 1978.

If the death penalty was replaced with a sentence of life without the possibility of parole, which costs millions less and also ensures that the public is protected while eliminating the risk of an irreversible mistake, the money saved could be spent on programs that actually improve the communities in which we live. The millions of dollars in savings could be spent on: education, roads, police officers and public safety programs, after-school programs, drug and alcohol treatment, child abuse prevention programs, mental health services, and services for crime victims and their families. Much better to waste money on things that actually benefit society rather than using it to kill people, don't you think?

 

I can't think any real logical reasons for capital punishment apart from eliminating a possible threat. However the threat is essentially neutralised since it is contained from the larger environment.

The main reason it's been accepted for so long in history is because of the emotional response of vengeance that human society has created.
It also came from war culture, the execution of enemies for various reasons, such as intimidation tactics/psychological warfare or the more practical (and merciful) reason because of the inability to sustain and feed the thousands of new mouths taken as prisoners.

It's part of every culture, quite ingrained in many still, yet Western culture is starting to slowly loosen the grip of the old idea of vengeance with murder into something less permanent of a result. We realise now, as a culture, we're rarely ever going to be one hundred percent right in our judgements of people. Evidence can be planted to paint a different story, or there may just not be enough evidence to even discover what happened properly. Till we do, we have no choice but to admit we can be at fault and others shouldn't lose their life for that.

 

I am all up for the death sentence, I may seem like a horrible person for saying that, but if someone has killed people, I am talking about serial killers here, they deserve to die. You may say that they are still human and everything, but it is hard to find love in a circumstance where death is involved. If somebody murdered your family, friends and everyone who you liked, even slightly, you would want them dead. Human rights, I know, I've heard it before. They don't even have to have an injection or anything, just one way or another, they deserve to be dead. The injections may be expensive but so is keeping a criminal in jail for the rest of their lives. The annual costs for the death penalty are more, but there are a lot if prisoners in jail. These funds on prisoners are holding the rest of humanity back while we could be advancing in medicine or other topics of importance.

 

But should we really feed into this revenge culture? PaW touched upon it but why wish death? This gets into a rather philosophical discussion, but do people feel this way because we are taught that someone should answer for their actions with a similar punishment, or because it is somehow morally or ethically "right"?

Obviously I cannot say how I would react to such a situation, but I do not believe am a vengeful person. Having lost a close family member to something that could have been easily avoided by the actions of another, I do not want revenge against that person. I want my family member back. That's all I really think when considering the situation. Perhaps placing the blame is a coping mechanism for us, but I refuse to believe we are left with any amount of satisfaction after a killer's brains are fried.

Overcrowded prisons are a big issue but there's far more to it than life sentence-ers clogging things up. This is getting off-topic but an ethically and morally superior option to correct this is to

1. Get rid of useless laws that place people in prison for small crimes (e.g. marijuana possession)
2. Establish a better integration system for criminals returning to society--most of the people in jail today have been there before, because we do not adequately prepare them for the life outside prison.
3. and so on.

And I fail to see how people in prison affect technological progress.

 

I am not going to argue with you because I can see your side of the argument very clearly, but I am just adamant about my decisions, and I do believe that there are some people that are able to get rehabilitation, but I am very paranoid person, and maybe that's just my paranoia speaking for me, but I do believe that there are some people who are doing the world unjust. I arrest my case to prevent future arguments that could be easily be avoided with me saying this. I am not saying that because I do not feel like arguing, I say it because everyone has an opinion.

 

Oh I understand, but the point of the Discussion section is to discuss your beliefs--being sure of yourself is a good thing, but you must listen to alternate viewpoints. Remaining grounded in one point of view is dangerous. That said, you're under no obligation to reply--really, anyone is welcome to reply to any questions anyone poses. That's where the whole "forum" bit comes in. ;)

That said, the way you break it down, it goes to temperament. Whereas you believe some people are beyond redemption, I do not believe that is possible. While I encourage a Socratic discussion and exchange, people's disposition, I find, is rather unwavering.

 

I was saying, but can see why one could mistake it, is that I do not want to start an argument, I am happy to discuss and expand on one's views but I do not wish to start an argument with someone on a section where one is allowed to say one's ideas and views, as in argument I say that as in spite filled arguments, instead of arguments to farther discuss a view to someone of the opposing party. When I reread it I do realize that the stricture of my post is a bit contradicting of the previous statement. I do know that there are criminals that are run on hate, as they may have been abused as a child, or been the subject of sexual harassment, or another case along the same principal of that. Subjects that can be treated and the medication is successful, while I do feel uneasy, glad a criminal is disposed of one way or another. Patients that do not reform due to the medication, should be executed. These are only for top tier offensives, not a robbery of such, these are usually along the grounds of psychopaths etc. I know by this point I am highly contradicting myself and am not keeping to my "Avoid arguments " pseudo pledge. I want to make my reasoning sound clearer.

 

People can discuss and debate without arguing--it's a matter of not resorting to personal attacks or insults in doing so, which I don't believe either of us, or anyone in this thread has done or will do. But by all means if you find offense in something that I said I do apologize.

On the case of mental illness being the motivation behind crime, you are right, through therapy and medication these things can be addressed. But what I mentioned (which was separate from the death penalty debate so you may not have felt it worth addressing), that there are alternate scenarios, like providing a smoother transition for former prisoners back into society can lessen the chance of repeat, or just another, offense.

I realize you are reserving this response for "extreme" cases but this just doesn't seem to me an ethically or morally sound argument--those who do not respond well to medication, and continue to exhibit violent tendencies, should be executed. Consider that we do not know how to treat all cases of mental illness, and that you are mandating execution for something that is outside of the person's control. A sociopath does not choose to be a sociopath--should they be punished for it, or treated for it? Obviously, in reality, a life sentence killer with mental illness is not provided with treatment/therapy while in prison, but just killing them offers no opportunity to do so.

 

No you have not said anything to offend me, I was saying that hypothetically. I am sorry if I was addressing the situation like that.

Rehabilitation is fine to me, if it can work, I just feel it isn't that successful, but correct me I am wrong.

While this is not fair, staying in a confined space for the rest of your life, or in a padded cell, can worsen the situation. Not every prisoner that needs mental help, actually gets this special treatment. Mental asylums can do exactly the same thing, worsen the situation, while they are not there to help the mentally unstable, they don''t have to neglect them either

 

Ethically I have no problem with death sentence, even though I agree we all are made the same, I don't think that "all lives worth the same", the prision is obviously a rehabilitation center, them putting people "beyond hope of getting better" together with those that can defeat its purpose, making it a place of devious morality that makes a person fit the "cruel state they're now", so less ofense criminals like a thief could grown into a murderer due to enough stress. So you could end up worse than when you entered there.

The pratical side .. I am against it, as it is complicated to be 100% sure of someone's guilty and thus i preffer to save 1 innocent life and spare 10000 criminal ones. There is some kind of fairness and validation of a criminal systeam that "doesn't kill", when you make a line that you don't cross it seems that you justify your action by being better than the criminals, like what if"The state can have weapons, the civilians not"? The state could argue that "we don't have death penalty, so is a quid pro co, "even though we carry weapons, our main objective is saving lives".

 

My personal opinion is that they should not be executed, but instead experimenter on. Better humanity by being a test subject. If you commit the ultimate sin, I see it only as death or better mankind. Will this entail suffering? Yes. Is that inhuman, don't matter to me. You murdered or did something else wrong. That was inhuman in of itself.

 

'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind' - Gandhi
In the end, killing the terrible human makes the killer terrible. Experimenting forcefully is worse than 'humane' killing, at that point it is effectively a form of slavery, abuse and torture.

 

This would either mean executing this penalty for relatively mild transgressions (single first degree murder included) or having such a small dataset that it becomes statistically irrelevant. There's that, and the fact that your test subjects aren't part of a random sample (I predict a relative deficit of female subjects, for example). Then there is the matter of the criminal's family, who I imagine can sometimes barely stomach an execution, let alone agonizing experiments. This is hardly a viable option, much less a betterment to humanity.

I think scrapping an option altogether because it sounds icky is stupid in general, and it's no different here. I wouldn't use the death penalty lightly but extreme cases such as mass murder, serial murder, genocide, serial rape and some forms of terrorism should be punishable by death in my opinion. I don't see this as a method of vengeance, but rather as the only surefire way to remove a person from society. Belgium has got a serial child rapist/killer that not only escaped in the 90s after his first period of imprisonment (after which he continued doing what he did before he was caught again), but he goes as far as to provoke the victims' parents from within prison. I don't care what Gandhi says; nothing good comes or has come from keeping this man alive.

 

That' s a tough one for me. I did pick a side, but I do realize that, morally speaking, both sides have pros and cons and none seems clearly better than the other. I guess that' s why our president organized a referendum on the matter 32 years ago, he wouldn' t have bothered to ask otherwise.

I picked the side against. The death penalty doesn' t seem to act as a better deterrant than prison itself (hell, just look how high the suicide rates are in prison), and it doesn' t necessarily strike me as a worse punishment either, depends on who you ask and which prison we' re talking about.

Since we often convict the wrong guy I' d rather not have them killed to top it all, it' s a tad easier to try and make amends for wrongly imprisoning them than for wrongly killing them. By the way, just curious, whose head would the talion law partisans want to see roll in that case ? The judge' s ? The jury' s ? The executionner' s ? All of them ? Gotta be coherent ...

Maybe in order to get a clearer picture I should check and compare the proportion of people wrongly incarcerated for murder (well, that we know of, I guess that one would be wild conjecture anyway) and that of recidivist murderers we' ve let out of prison (which I heard recently is surprisingly low, at least in my country, apparently our psychologists are better than I thought).

 

I'll take a look and review this question from two sides.

Logical: While some may consider the death sentence as an unjust or cruel punishment, keeping a prisoner locked in a cell for life could also be considered cruel. I believe that criminals of a certain caliber, should be executed. Two reasons as to why. The cost of keeping such a person alive is pretty high. Last I checked, it was roughly fifty-two dollars a day for a single prisoner, this was a few years back. Secondly, be it an execution or a life-term, the prisoner has no hope of any kind of "life" anymore. So, rather than taking a toll on the economy and prolonging an inevitable demise, why not just execute them and be done with it.

Emotional: Taking a criminals life makes you no better than them, if not worse. Yes, they may have committed severe felonies, but why not just let them live out the rest of their lives in prison. There is no crime that justifies a punishment as harsh as execution.

Sorry, but I tend to agree with my logical answer. There are plenty of crimes that justify execution. I do believe in the eye-for-an-eye concept. And I honestly don't even like the concept of "Death-row". Should a person be convicted of a heinous crime, and declared guilty, without a shadow of a doubt, that person should be executed immediately after receiving his/her last of rights. Now, things would be different if there wasn't enough evidence to support the charges, as previously stated, "without a shadow of a doubt" then no, that person should not be executed until said evidence could be brought to light.

The way I see it, keeping serial murderers (I would really like to add in a few more groups, but for the purpose of this conversation I shan't) behind bars, on Death-row, is costing way to much money. I'd rather just see it ended.

Again, i'm sorry if any of my thoughts or opinions may have offended you.

 

Stuff like this I agree they should be put to to death.

That happened in Ohio were I live.

Ohio school shooter TJ Lane arrived at his sentencing hearing today wearing a blue button down shirt. After he sat down, he unbuttoned the shirt to reveal a white t-shirt with the word "killer" emblazoned across the front in black marker.

When Lane was given the opportunity to make a statement to the court, he made a short statement and then stuck his middle finger up in the courtroom filled with the loved ones of the three students he gunned down.

Lane, 18, smirked and smiled as family members of his victims called him "repulsive" and hoped for him to be locked up in a cage "like an animal" for the rest of his life.

"Frankly, I wasn't prepared for this," the prosecutor said moments after Lane's gesture. He said the action was proof that Lane is a "disgusting human being."

"This is confirming what we have known all along, that this was a cold, calculated, premeditated killing," the prosecutor said.

The judge sentenced Lane to life imprisonment without parole. Lane chuckled at the sentence.

Lane killed three students during a Feb. 27, 2012 rampage at Chardon High School. Daniel Parmertor, 16, Demetrius Hewlin, 16, and Russell King Jr., 17, were all killed. When he was captured a short time later he was wearing a grey shirt with the word "killer" written on the front.

Lane's defense attorney told the court that he "strongly urged" Lane not say what he was about to the court, but Lane proceeded anyway.

Lane smiled as a mother who lost her son said she is cynical now and devastated. She wished an "extremely slow, torturous death" for him.

"You don't deserve to take another breath while my 16-year-old son Danny lies in the cold, hard ground," Daniel Parmertor's mother said.

Lane plead guilty on Feb. 26 and faces life in prison.

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