Capital Punishment

[K.Brazier]

What would Jesus say?

[Merryprankster]

I just realize now you live in the District. I lived in 6D and worked in 5D. Whereabouts you at?

I'm actually in Crystal City. Moving to San Francisco in August.

I feel the death penalty has sufficient checks to ensure an innocent man is not put to death.

How many death row inmates were released in Illinois was it?...all because DNA evidence exonerated them? Death Penalty supporters argue that shows the checks and balances are working!

What that really proves is that innocent people are - rarely but consistently - placed on death row. It is not a large leap to conclude that innocent people must have died in state executions, despite the best intentions of the state to prevent that from happening.

There is never a 100% positive of a mans guilt.

Correct. Which is why the Death Penalty is a very wrong punishment. If there is never 100% proof, then there should never be an irrevocable punishment because there is always the finite chance the person is innocent.

As I stated before, the only alternative argument is to state that the public good of retribution outweighs the lives of the innocents accidentally put to death - and I am appalled by that argument on all kinds of levels.

I understand that reasonable doubt satisfies the court, and I think that is an appropriate standard for guilt - but for the state to take life, I'd need an iron-clad guarentee. Since none exists, I object to the death penalty on systemic grounds - not the idea that even multiple murderers have sacred lives.

[GreenCloudCLF]

Death Penalty Errors by State

Thought y'all would want to see some overturned conviction statistics based on state. (Remember an overturned conviction does not mean a person is innocent. Also, these "wrongful conviction" statistics also show the checks I have been showing)

[Merryprankster]

None of that is the point, GreenCloud:

Given the finite probability of a person's innocence, the number of people on death row, and the effects of all of this over time, at least one innocent person will eventually be put to death, despite our best efforts.

It's probably already happened, and if it has not, it eventually will.

To me, this is an unacceptable price to pay.

The ONLY argument available to death penalty supporters is that it IS an acceptable price to pay.

[Eddie]

I would have thought that we as people has evolved and matured over the past thousands of years. Its seems we didn’t. The Death penalty is a human right infringement. We have no right to take someone else’s life. Sure, the same goes for that person who committed the crime, but there are other ways of punishment.

Life in jail cant be very easy. The emotional toll it takes on someone would be hell alone. As humans, all that drives us is hope. If that is taken away from you, we might as well be zombies. I cannot possibly imagine what it would be like to be in jail, but I get the feeling its not nice. Those people who committed the crimes are also people too, and while I support stronger and tighter law enforcement regulations etc, I am against any human right violation. We cannot become them, and do the same by killing them.

Regards to the terrorist statement, I think many people are often missing the point. A terrorist to some is always a freedom fighter to others.

I suspect this topic be driven by the Al Quada incidents of late, so I’d rather not get involved in political arguments.

Its NEVER a good thing when people die or suffer. NEVER, not even out of revenge.

[Mortal1]

"Regards to the terrorist statement, I think many people are often missing the point. A terrorist to some is always a freedom fighter to others."

And to those others you speak of. They are terrorists also and deserve to die as well. People who harbor terrorists are wrong and that's it.

I think you are missing the point.

With all due respect.

[GreenCloudCLF]

Its NEVER a good thing when people die or suffer. NEVER, not even out of revenge.

But?

Life in jail cant be very easy. The emotional toll it takes on someone would be hell alone.

Contradictory statements?

MP,

The ONLY argument available to death penalty supporters is that it IS an acceptable price to pay.

That is not the ONLY arguement. I believe there are enough checks to ensure that innocents are not excecuted.

[MonkeySlap Too]

MP Said:
"However, we have an imperfect system, where people sit in judgment of other people. Any system involving humans WILL make mistakes; this means that innocent people WILL die. They have either already been executed by the state, or it will happen in the future.

Call me idealistic, but putting even one innocent person to death is not worth the only possible societal gain that cannot be achieved through life in prison without parole - retribution.

People like you try to stand on the moral highground, speak from their anecdotal experiences, and appeal to the emotion - "oh, if you looked into the eyes of the victim and the victims family, you'd want revenge for them, so the death penalty is just."

But strangely, for somebody who claims such systematic, organized thought, (to presumably connote superior mental ability) you've completely missed the implications of a human system that sends people to death - that innocent people WILL die.

If you agree with the death penalty - are self-righteously "proud to support it," then you are saying, in essence, that the occasional dead innocent, put to death by a system built on the idea that "it is better that 10 guilty men go free," than an innocent man punished, is worth the retribution.

I can reverse unjust incarceration, as scarring as it may be. I cannot reverse death. Therefore, I cannot risk sanctioning the death penalty an an appropriate state-sponsored punishment."


From now on I'm just going to shut up and re-post what he says...

[Akhilleus]

"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."

-J.R.R. Tolkien

[Eddie]

But?
Contradictory statements?

Nope its not. I’m against crime just as most of you, but I live in a real society with real problems. I have never been to jail, and really will do all I can never to make that mistake to go to jail either, but I have seen and were told of how bad it is in jail. When ever we are victims of crime, we tend to want to impose the most severe punishment on people. This is normal, we all are like that, but from what I have been told and seen on tv, prison (specially in South Africa) is punishment enough. This part of my statement related more to those who say that prisoners should have no right and be treated as such. I agree that when you cross the line, you should be punished, and punishment should fit the crime, but we have NO excuse to take away anyone’s dignity or basic human rights. Even criminals are people too. Don’t make things easy for them, but just keep in mind that they are still entitled to basic human rights.

Your cultural and religious back ground guides the way you view certain things. And never under estimate the power of propaganda. In my country we saw all these, and we had to learn from experience. When I grew up, as a white boy in South Africa, I was always told that a certain political group were terrorists. Every single day on the TV news that’s what we saw, and from the first day in school, that’s what we have been told. Every Tuesday in highschool we had military cadet training, which prepared all us white people for the struggle and to take up arms against this group. Now that very same group is the ruling party of my country, and I realise now that these Men and Woman who I used to see as terrorist, were actually just standing up for what they believed in. There is always two sides of the coin.

My political views differ very much from most people on this forum, and I have had this type of argument with people on this forum since way before the 911 atrocity. I am a simple guy, not to well versed in English, and cannot always bring my points of belief across in a manner that others really understand what I’m REALLY trying to say. I have even been called a terrorist too.

I am against killing and against crime. Capital punishment is killing too. It often confuses me to see how many people who are against things like abortion etc are actually for the death penalty.

Im not trying to offend anyone, so hope you see this as it was intended.

Greencloudclf, if you have personal issues on this topic, please take it up with me in a pm. Respect is something we as martial artists should know all about. Why bother to post this topic if no one would be allowed to view their opinions without being attacked with sarcasm.

[Mr Punch]

Does nobody else here think that giving a murderer a death penalty is often letting them off easily?

A lot of murderers say they want to be killed.

Some others would prefer death over a lifetime of incarceration.

And the death penalty gives them this get out.

Life imprisonment should be just that. There should be no parole for mass murderers, rapists, serial killers, or premeditated murderers of any sort. For murders of passion, there should maybe be a chance of rehabilitation.

All of these criminals should have psychological evaluation and analysis for the rest of their lives. Why?

1) It'll probably **** them off!
2) They'll stand a chance of providing some useful information and data to help prevent/identify the kind of situations which breed this kind of dysfunction.

Prison should be work six days a week, to pay for their treatment and incarceration, and the profits from any books etc written in that time should go to paying for their stay and to victims' support charities etc. These ****ers should pay for what they did.

TV should be a limited bargained for privilege, not a right, and not the norm. Access to libraries etc should be another. As should exercise other than work. If you misbehave, you should get nothing but the barest nutritional minimum. Thereby offenders who want to improve themselves can work and study to do so. Those who don't get nada.

Just my opinion.

The death penalty, as is the current prison system, is very inefficient.

[Merryprankster]

That is not the ONLY arguement. I believe there are enough checks to ensure that innocents are not excecuted.

It is the only argument once you admit the system isn't perfect. Are you telling me the system is perfect? That is has a perfect record? That all those checks 100% guarentee that innocent people are not executed?

You said before there is never 100% certainty about guilt.

Which is it? You can't have it both ways. Either there is an imperfect system, which will, by its imperfect nature, eventually put an innocent man to death, or there is a perfect, infallible system, which self corrects to 100% surity before the "moment of truth."

There are very few things in life that are truly dilemmas (in the rhetorical sense of either/or). This is one of them - there is no third way.

[GreenCloudCLF]

Eddie,

I did not mean for my comments to sound sarcastic. We were debating a point, and I was presenting my point of view from what you said. I was unaware that Eglish was not your first language, as you are rather eloquent. Please take no offense to my opinion, because as everyone knows opinions are like *******s, everyone has one. This is a public forum debating the Death Penalty, our differing points of view should not require PM discussions.

Again, if you took my posts as insulting I apologize.


MP,

There is no 100% sure about guilt. And I am not saying the system is perfect. I AM saying that the errors in the system alow people who should be excuted to avoid this penalty. In a manner of "erring on the side of caution." There is NO evidence (other than peoples conjecture it may happen) which states an innocent man has ever been executed. EVER. Not in the 200+ years our government has existed. So I am certain that erring on the side of caution does ensure that an innocent man is not executed.

If ever an innocent is executed, then I admit, I may have to revisit my opinon. But I do require evidence, not conjecture.
------
For those reading this thread that actually have an opinion (going either for or against) such as MP and Eddie, I reccommend the following movie if you have not already seen it.The Life of David Gale

[Merryprankster]

If ever an innocent is executed, then I admit, I may have to revisit my opinon. But I do require evidence, not conjecture.

In the absence of 100% certainty, our system should err on the side of caution, as you surmise. But the system safeguards are not erring on the side of caution because they do not eliminate error. They cannot for it is impossible to do. Rather, they merely reduce the rate of error. The only foolproof caution is to eliminate the death penalty.

Yes, we have appeals. We have lots of them, we have all kinds of reviews. And still, people make mistakes. It happens in every single human system. Mistakes are a known quantity, in that they exist in every human process. Mistakes are a known quantity in that optimization algorithms CANNOT SOLVE for a 100% perfect solution - they merely shoot for about 99%. Mistakes exist in everything known to man.

Captial punishment is not an issue where we can afford to be wrong.

Unless you can say, with a straight face, that the system is 100% foolproof, then you must admit that given a long enough time, with enough executions, an innocent person WILL be put to death.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, and giving the justice system at least .99 percent of the doubt IMO, that the system is 99.99% accurate. That means that for every 10,000 people executed, 1 is not guilty of a capital crime. For every 9999 people who deserved it, you get one dead person who did not.

And if you still agree with the death penalty after that demonstration, then the ONLY justification is that the 9999 cases of retribution are worth that one person who shouldn't have died.

Understand that this is a valid argument. You may validly hold the opinion that society benefits far more from killing 9999 people who deserved it, than it loses by sacrificing the one. You may argue that it is a vital, necessary part of the social contract.

But also understand that the minute you say the system isn't perfect, that this is your ONLY recourse. You MUST admit that sacrificing people who don't deserve it is worth the retribution.

No matter how much you talk around it, or try to justify it through the appeals process and system safeguards, the minute you admit the system makes errors, that conclusion is inescapable.

There is NO evidence (other than peoples conjecture it may happen) which states an innocent man has ever been executed. EVER. Not in the 200+ years our government has existed. So I am certain that erring on the side of caution does ensure that an innocent man is not executed.

What you are really saying is "Ok, I admit the system isn't perfect, but it hasn't killed anybodywho didn't deserve it...yet." When people start saying this, I always know I have them backed into a logical corner. You are essentially admitting that it is only a matter of time before the system does.

Either the system isn't perfect, or it is (the whole system, including appeals, pardons, stays, etc). And if it isn't, then the death penalty is way too risky.

Unless, of course, you believe that one guy is worth the cumulative retribution.

[iblis73]

I for one believe we arent killing ENOUGH people! I realize the mechanism for cap punishment needs work, but I am definately all for it. Not only do most murderers/rapists get out on parole after serving 1/3 or less of their time, they are often better connected when they leave. The explosion in gangs, prison gangs and other criminal enterprises is ridiculous. I think ANY premeditated murder is worthy of capital punishment. As for sexual predators........the facts remain, they have the highest or one of the highest rates of repeat offense. Death, castration, or lifetime placement in a concentration camp is the only way to go.


Each time one of these cretins reoffends-murder, rape,robbery,molestation......he multiplies his own cost to society. Forget the arrest, trial and incarceration....think of the devastating emotional and financial wreckage of the victim and the victims family.


We need less scum.