What are your thoughts on the death penalty as it pertains to innocent people being wrongly convicted?

I’m opposed to killing people who don’t deserve it.

Well, as a general rule, anyway.

I think killing innocent people for society is abhorrent.

Well, of course, if we knew they were innocent it would be abhorrent. Trouble is, we don’t always know.

I, myself do not believe anyone should suffer the death penalty. However, that is not the world we live in. If there is a death, especially premeditated or done in a horrible way, or certain crimes people deem very vile even when no one died, someone has to pay dearly for it. If it takes burning one or two innocent people, it is an acceptable loss that society is willing to take that no guilty slip through the net and go unpunished.

Besides, there is no punishment with the death penalty, other than the horror of looking forward to it.

@Hypocrisy_Central “If it takes burning one or two innocent people, it is an acceptable loss that society is willing to take that no guilty slip through the net and go unpunished.”

However burning one or two innocent people necessarily means that one or two guilty people have gone unpunished.

@Darth_Algar However burning one or two innocent people necessarily means that one or two guilty people have gone unpunished.
Of course, but someone paid even if it were the wrong person, someone paid for that crime, so the lucky criminal got away with it and maybe, the next time around (of course there is another victim) they would get caught and the charges would hold. Vengeance knows little logic.

@Hypocrisy_Central someone paid even if it were the wrong person, someone paid for that crime

Wrong. If you punish the wrong person, nobody has paid for the crime. Only the guilty party can pay for his her crime(s).

@Dutchess_III Well, of course, if we knew they were innocent it would be abhorrent.

Wrong

Who is society to kill anyone for me. If I want someone dead I can darn well go out and kill them myself.

This is just one of the reasons why I oppose it now. Money, fame, power, sex, race and other prejudices are frequently factors in who gets the death penalty rather than those who may actually deserve it the most. Humans are too prejudiced and fallible to be handing out death sentences, and I also don’t believe the state should be in the business of executing the very citizens it’s supposed to be looking out for.

@Dan_Lyons Wrong. If you punish the wrong person, nobody has paid for the crime. Only the guilty party can pay for his her crime(s).
I beg to differ, in the US some people pay for crimes of other people. Officially if they are convicted, then officially they are the guilty one and will suffer what the penalty is. As far as the State goes, the convicted person is the one that did it. They can write it off as a win, they sent someone to prison; they can always recap that during election season.

Regardless @Hypocrisy_Central if the wrong person is convicted of a crime, then nobody has paid for that crime. I don’t care what the state gets out of it. Screw the state. They are nothing. The state may write it off, but the only person who can pay for a crime is the guilty party. And many times they are not proven guilty and skate.

The thought sickens me. I hear that in the last decade, almost ten percent of the inmates killed were discovered to have been innocent. This after years of collecting evidence, multiple witnesses and judges. We just make too many mistakes for people to pay with their lives.

Source: Criminology professor at my university.

@Dan_Lyons How am I wrong saying “If we knew they were innocent it would be abhorrent.”?

what I am saying here @Dutchess_III is that it is abhorrent to execute people regardless of alleged guilt or innocence.

And although we don’t always know, there are people involved with convicting the innocent people who in fact do know. The police, the prosecution and of course the one(s) who is guilty.

OK.

I don’t agree with the death penalty at all, for anyone.