Are you pro or against the death penalty and why?

Against, because 1) I don’t believe the state should be in the killing business for any reason and 2) Because taking a life does not make it right to take another one.

WOW, when I ask even the remotely same question, I have a number of members instantly posting links as to when I asked and then seem annoyed that I again am asking, but with that behind us.
As I have said before I am against the death penalty,if you wrongly put to death one innocent person than YOU are no better than the murderer themselves,and there have been a number of cases where someone has spent years and years in prison for a horrible crime, then all of a sudden oops sorry they are found to be not guilty,imagine if they had been put to death.
BUT then again have no problem if the justice system wants to zap real monsters such as Dalmer (u.s) or Olson( Canada)so I guess I will admit I am a ;little two faced on the topic.

Against.
1. Mistakes happen, no system will ever be perfect (especially one that involves humans). Executing an innocent is among the most horrific things a government can do.
2. It can’t be applied fairly between races and socioeconomic status. Rich white men/women don’t get the death penalty.
3. There is no good reason to do it. It doesn’t deter crime. It doesn’t save money.
4. It’s morally/philosophically untenable. Killing is wrong ergo I will kill you—It makes no sense.
5. Life in prison without parole IS a death sentence, just one without an execution date. It accomplishes the same goal (permanent removal of the prisoner from society) without the state resorting to murder.
6. Desire for vengeance/retribution is a base emotion. It isn’t part of justice and we shouldn’t give into that.

By the way I posted the question so the people at another OP have started answering this question, i.e it they are off topic. So hopefully they will paste their answers here.

Totally against. A fallible, corruptible institution like the political state should not be given the opportunity to execute the wrong person.

Very Pro. Sure there will be errors made. Any kind of national system of justice will make errors, especially when so many overzealous douchebags prosecute the law. Still over the large picture our system is very good at getting the guilty. If the sentence were carried out quickly, it would help a lot with the expense to the state over appeals, and appeals of appeals. Particularly in the case of heinous criminals. I think the very real possibility of getting executed for murder has the potential to deter crime if it is carried out with alacrity. In Russia, there was a time when the defendant was led away from the courtroom and shot within minutes of sentencing. Probably not the case any more, but it was pretty cold.

@SQUEEKY2 Sending you a PM.

Very much opposed. Initially it was due to the impossibility of equal justice. But over time I’ve become convinced that the State should not be in the business of deliberately killing people.

Very much against. I don’t want the State committing murder in my name.

Pro, in the case of brutal serial killers who cannot be corrected or treated in any way, it is the only way to rid society of people who would simply do it again if gicen the chance.

I’m opposed to it as it is barbaric.

Hasn’t this subject been talked about enough the past few days?

I’m against it for a variety of reasons, in most cases. Some main reasons:

* Justice systems tend to get the wrong people, and far too often.

* It doesn’t do much if any good. In fact, apparently it even costs more to kill someone than to lock them up till they die. It also doesn’t seem to deter crime.

* I have compassion for most people, even most violent offenders. I can imagine, say, having killed someone who raped someone close to me, and ending up suffering on death row, and what my experience would be like. I wouldn’t wish that on someone else, even if they had done worse crimes. Though there are some people I have a hard time finding any compassion for, I also get that I don’t know them and I’m arrogant if I imagine them as inhuman. I don’t actually want to kill anyone, even by proxy of a justice system. Especially someone who’s already completely at mercy and safely locked away.

* Even if I strongly wanted some types of perpetrators killed (which I don’t) and others to live, I wouldn’t trust our judicial system to make the choices I’d want about that, and I’d be afraid the rules would get changed by others with different opinions than I have. And I’d expect them to make horribly wrong choices about it too often.

* Incarcerated people sometimes do reform and turn into people who do a lot of good things. Death sentences tend to be carried out years after the crime, and often kill such people.

* It’s hypocritical/illogical/immoral (to me) to kill people for killing people. When I do wish someone were killed, I’m at least honest that it’s because I despise them and want to make an example of them. (But my other reasons say no, such as ineffectiveness and compassion.) I don’t buy the argument that it makes sense to make a law that kills people for killing; I think that’s a cover-up for rage/bloodlust.

* I respect the morality of the many people who are opposed to our democratic government killing people, based on their moral/religious/spiritual arguments and opinions. I don’t think a democratic society should kill people when many of its people are so opposed to doing it.

* I don’t think our corporate sellout government with its corporate for-profit prisons and corporate-guided military policies deserves the authority to kill people. I’d have all the above objections even if I still respected our level of democracy (in the USA), but given what’s become of it, it’s another strong reason not to approve its authority to kill people.

Against. Life in prison without parole is a far better punishment.

Don’t believe me, spend some time in a maximum security prison.

I would give a person a second chance by exiling them to somewhere where they can’t cause any more trouble yet be free and flourish by their own effort. Like what the British did by sending criminals to Australia.

I am for, but only in very narrow circumstances. There are certain people whose crimes are atrocious enough that it’s not worth spending the money to keep a person alive.

Those who say that execution costs more are taking into account that Death Row inmates are only telling part of the story. While it costs more per year to house a Death Row inmate, the true cost is actually due to the fact that the average inmate spends so long on Death Row. If the time between the sentence being handed down and the time of execution were measured in days rather than years, those costs would not be there. Yes, there are added court costs due to mandatory appeals, in addition to higher costs from housing them separately, but even then, shaving a decade or two off of incarceration times would balance the costs in the end.

However, that would also mean that we would have to be damn sure we got it right, and that is where we fail. There was no doubt that Saddam Hussein was guilty of crimes against humanity, nor was there any question about Timothy McVeigh’s actions. On the other hand, in my eyes, Jeffrey Dahmer was of questionable enough mental health that I would err on the side of caution and not consider him eligible for execution, and Charles Manson wouldn’t even come close to getting a capital trial as it doesn’t take a psychiatrist to tell that the cheese slid off his cracker.

From those examples, you can see that I set the bar a bit high. A mere “crime of passion” murder or three wouldn’t be enough. One would have to kill in a premeditated manner, and have a pretty high body count for me to consider the Death Penalty an option. And psychiatric history/health would also play a huge role

The major issue with the Death Penalty is that some jurisdictions carry it out haphazardly, and in arguably discriminatory ways. In fact, many of the arguments against capital punishment are because of Texas, where it seems like being black, Mexican and/or having any form of mental illness is a capital offense, and they don’t care if they convicted the right person for a crime.

To be sure, other places have had their missteps, but I think that the Lone Star sta…err.. Republic deserves special mention since they account for less than 9% of our population yet over one-third of executions in the US. That goes a long way towards putting our entire nation in the same league as shining beacons of human rights like Iran, Iraq, China, Somalia, Yemen, North Korea and Saudi Arabia. Enough to serve as a perfect example of the flaws of capital punishment without even looking abroad.

I think that we could reform the system if we wanted to. I don’t think that our justice system is that far gone that it couldn’t work. History has shown that a few individual states are not able to be trusted with the power over life and death though, so one change would be to make all capital cases federal. (The fact that most of the “problem states” are ones that tried seceding ~150 years ago probably isn’t coincidence either, but that’s a separate discussion.) I think that we could have a system that allows for humane execution while still adhering to the Constitution and cutting costs.

Then again, I see all sorts of things that other nations already do that our nation is adamantly against, so I don’t realistically see any of those reforms happening until the US as a collective whole stops acting like the most stubborn toddler ever throwing the most destructive tantrum in history just for the sake of contrariness.

@cookieman I am not up for punishing. I am for ridding the society of society of irredeemably evil people who commit atrocities by choice.

@gorillapaws Regarding your point #2, that argument could be made for pretty much any aspect of American society, whether it be capital punishment or even eligibility for basic human rights like food and water.

@jerv His cheese slipped off his cracker. Lol.

Kind of hard to say oh shit we fucked up, after you go to the death penalty, and we fuck up a lot.

Neutral. There are actually situations that death penalty is justified, or the only option. Some people are just too cold-blooded to be reformed. But that doesn’t make death penalty seem good. After all it’s just an act of killing.

I am both because I think,

On the fence after years of being a staunch anti based on believing that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind and other spiritual ( not religious ) philosophies.

1. Leaning towards, because, we simply cannot afford to warehouse lifers into infinity.

2, Violent, repeat offenders, cold blooded, 1st degree murderers, sex offenders and sociopaths have given up their rights in committing their crimes.

3. These types are not rehab material and releasing them is playing Russian Roulette, 99.9% of the time they will re-offend, it’s hardwired and they are beyond redemption.

4. It is the way of nature, kill or be killed. If you kill you, consciously or by by default, are condoning being killed. Does the lion spare the Hyena when it kills it’s cubs? We are human animals, like it or not and must protect our own.

5. At 7+ billion humanoids on this planet those that cannot support civilized society and refrain from predatory behavior, need to be the 1st that are eliminated to afford the safety and self preservation of those that strive to be decent humans.

5. The “state” is perfectly capable of meting out the death penalty while not abusing it in other circumstances.

6. The monies saved in warehousing death rowers and lifers for heinous crimes could be spent on helping the living non-criminal population. On intervention programs for at risk children/youth, the homeless and many other community service programs.

I have met men who were proved innocent after being condemned to death. I have also met mobsters who killed innocent people with their hands.

I am not kidding or exaggerating. My job and my friends brought me into contact with these people.

The death penalty is barbaric and medieval.

@jaytkay Yes, but, for every one proved innocent at some later date there are 1000 that are guilty. Sometimes the captain has to go down with the ship ya know.

Against. No one has the right to say whether another person should die. The blood is on everyone’s hands because it is done in our name.

My thoughts have been all over the board on this topic when it pertains to the US. Right now, it feels like there are people who deserve the death penalty who aren’t up for it and those that shouldn’t be but are.

If a person is proven to be guilty of multiple heinous crimes and there is no chance of rehabilitation, then yes, the death penalty seems like the appropriate action. The sooner, the better. No waiting period and no potential pardon.

The challenge is that there are laws that allow the death penalty for reasons that are emotionally founded. For example, there are currently 61 people on death row in the US on a federal level. This does not include those that are being held in in US states that have a death penalty for state-related crimes.

None of these sound like people who are past the point of rehabilitation. Some of these cases even came about because the guilty party was in jail for another violation.

Lets also not forget that these criminals will die a much more humane death than their victims.
We are not torturing them, sexually violating them, tape recording them pleading for their lives, as many have done to their innocent victims.

Sometimes the captain has to go down with the ship ya know

So you volunteer? It’s like the lottery. Buy your ticket (vote for the death penalty) and odds are we won’t kill you.

You in?

these criminals will die a much more humane death than their victims.

Lots of them are not criminals.

Here in Illinois, we exonerated more people than we executed while the state was killing people.

@jaytkay It is rare that completely innocent, model citizens, with no arrest records are convicted of heinous crimes. Sure, if somehow I am arrested, being a model citizen, zero criminal record, for some atrocious crime, well then…yep, I’ll take my chances.
The odds of winning the lottery are a lot better.
Thousands upon thousands of innocent lives are lost in war every-single-day, so we lose 5 innocents for every 5,000 extreme fuck ups, it’s about the greater good and the greater good always involves sacrifice.

Innocent women and children and infants are killed in war every minute so if some riff raffy type that already has a long record ends up being falsely accused, oh well.

@Coloma so we lose 5 innocents for every 5,000 extreme fuck ups

No. Nonsense. Ridiculous statement. In my state, we exonerated more people than we executed in recent decades.

I KNOW innocent people who were scheduled for death. It’s nonsense.

@jaytkay You know multiple innocent people that had zero prior criminal records that were just magically singled out for no good reason?
Just how many people are you talking about here anyway and were they model citizens or rational suspects based on prior records?
Sorry, but I still stand by my sentiments, very few people are arrested for serious crimes that don;t already have records and therefore fall into a potential suspect zone.

I’m against. The state makes too many errors. Maybe we can reevaluate things again if we want to increase the budget for public defenders 100 fold.

And really.. There is little bottle of shit we use here for people to kill themselves. It is suggested to mix it with Dr Pepper to neutralize the taste.

I wouldn’t object to leaving a can of Dr. Pepper and the death vile next to a inmates bed every-night. Let pulling the plug be their choice.

@Coloma You know multiple innocent people that had zero prior criminal records that were just magically singled out for no good reason?

Yes. I know innocent people condemned to death. Prior convictions are not relevant.

I know people who escaped being murdered by the state..

Center on Wrongful Convictions

The death penalty has no justification. It does not deter crime any more than life imprisonment and it is based on a flawed eye for an eye model of justice. Harming someone in retaliation for a crime serves no purpose. The damage of the crime is in no way lessened. You just end up with an extra dead body. Two wrongs do not make a right. Killing by the State is just as immoral as killing by criminals.

There is even the possibility that beyond its direct contribution to the murder rate that the death penalty increases the murder rate by fostering an attitude that makes murder an acceptable choice. The State’s case against murder would be much more convincing if it did not engage in the very act it supposedly wishes to eliminate.

Oh, and hurrah for Nebraska for just becoming the 19th state to revoke the death penalty. When conservative states reject the death penalty, you know the practice is on it way out, on death row so to speak.

@Coloma I love you to pieces, but I have a unique experience in this question. I know innocent people who escaped execution. They were awaiting the chair and were let go.

The death penalty is not fair because convictions are not fair.

@jaytkay I hate to say it, but life isn’t fair.

Yes, we have some control as to how unfair it is, but tell me what you think is fair for those who are guilty BEYOND ANY SHADOW OF DOUBT. I’m not talking cases that required a lot of piecing together either; we’re talking zero ambiguity and a ton of corroboration with a healthy dose of verification just to cover all the angles. And I’m not talking about someone like OJ Simpson; I’m talking mosters with body counts of at least dozens, if not hundreds or even thousands.

For example, how fair were those people in Oklahoma City treated by Timothy McVeigh? Before you respond, it is worth noting that his accomplice, Terry Nichols, was not sentenced to death; while his actions were heinous in and of themselves, they were not bad enough to prevent the jury from being deadlocked when it came to whether he deserved to die, thus earning Nichols the dubious distinction of “Longest prison sentence ever” with 161 consecutive life sentences without parole. Think about that for a moment and you will realize that the system is capable of self-restraint.

@Coloma If you were born a poor black man, you’d probably feel differently about innocents being executed. Our system is fucked. You’ve got Wall Street execs who have ruined the lives of thousands of people and not only didn’t get jail time, some got bonuses. You’ve got overzealous prosecutors trying to make political careers for themselves. You’ve got poor schmucks being defended in capital murder trials by some of the least experienced attorneys, because DAs don’t get paid shit for the amount of work required for a murder trial and it goes to the guys who are fresh out of law school and graduated at the bottom of their class. Couple that with massive forensic fuckups and you’ve got a recipe for a justice system that has no business taking life—and certainly not to save a few bucks.

They should make Marijuana legal and they’d free up a ton of room in prisons, save the money spent on prosecuting/incarcerating those guys and get the tax revenue from cannabis sales. Problem solved.

@gorillapaws If you were a poor black man, or even poor of any color or gender, being in prison may be your best shot at having three hots and a cot. Sad, but true.

My nephew is an attorney in New Orleans, and for many years worked for The Innocence Project, which specializes in working to exonerate and free wrongly-convicted Death Row inmates in Louisiana.

We once visited his office and I asked him what that poster on the wall meant. It had many names on it, with maybe 25 of them highlighted. He said the highlighted ones were people who were found completely innocent, exonerated and freed from Death Row.

It follows without question that MANY innocent people have been executed in Lousiana, and certainly by other states which still have capital punishment.

“An eye for an eye” sounds fair, but presumes that every convicted inmate is actually guilty and deserving of this barbaric punishment.

Many are not…

Paedophiles, kill them fuckers…twice.

@jaytkay I’m not disagreeing about your experiences, they are your experiences just sayin’ that those with priors will always be first in line as potential suspects so it is unfair to claim they are truly innocent. Innocent of the crime at hand perhaps but not innocent as in never been in trouble for anything ever. The first suspects cops look at depending on the crime committed will be those locals with prior offenses, that’s just basic detective work, a rape occurs look at the registered sex offenders in the general area first.

@gorillapaws I hear ya, agree on many points, legalizing MJ for the reasons you mention, absolutely and white collar crime should not be exempt from severe punishment as well. All that aside however, there ARE plenty convicted beyond a shadow of a doubt, with no fuck ups involved that should be sent to their final resting place because they are nothing more than a blight and burden on society.

Plus…just to play devils advocate, many extremely guilty people have been let off the hook for bungled investigations as well, O.J. Simpson comes to mind and many others. One serial killer in the 70’s Ed Kemper had been convicted of killing his grandparents at age 14, spent time in CYA until he was 21, was released after snowing the psychiatric staff into thinking he was no longer a danger and actually had the heads of 2 girls in the trunk of his car when he was released from his final parole appt. He went on to murder like another half dozen young women, along with his own mother and her friend. Oops!

The system is flawed but letting violent offenders go free is just as bad as convicting innocents.

I’d also add that I do not see the death penalty as anything other than removing the most dangerous amongst us. It is not about retribution, it is not about an eye for an eye, it is certainly not murder.
It is, from an objective standpoint, a viable option to life in prison for the worst of the worst and to sidestep the costs of life imprisonment for offenders that will never be rehab material. I agree the death penalty is not a deterrent but it is a viable option and the state, in putting down a vicious and violent criminal is not committing further murder, it is a calculated consequence based on protecting the greater good.

Forgive me for babbling on here this morning, too much coffee, probably talking to myself, but it also just occurred to me, for those of you that equate the death penalty with murder by state, how do you feel about killing terrorists?
If seems to me that if one condones killing those that pose threat to our country that really, to be against the death penalty for individuals that are a threat to others due to their grievous crimes is rather hypocritical. If you agree with killing Osama Bin Laden but not a violent murderer in your own state/country what’s your rationale for this duplicity?

Saving money is a pretty weak argument for the death penalty. There simply are not that many people subject to the death penalty. The cost saving is pretty minimal. But it gets worse. Following your logic, you should be able to buy your way out of the death penalty. What if someone was wealthy enough to pay his own living expenses or could raise money from others? According to your monetary based reasoning these people should be spared while people with fewer resources should be killed. This starts getting pretty wacko.

@LostInParadise Re-read my post. Yes, is costs a bit more per per day to store Death Row inmates, roughly 50% more, and the added court costs are about the same as two years of warehousing them, but think of it this way; keeping a person on Death Row for six months costs about the same as keeping a lifer in for three years. The reason the death penalty costs so much is that the average time one spends on Death Row is around 16 years. I would argue that that is a violation of the Eighth Amendment. But if you think that $300,000 is more than ( ( $90,000 * 16 ) + $160,000 ) or ( ($60,000 * 45 ) + $120,000 ) then you can keep believing that death costs more than life.

Also, those that can buy their way off of Death Row are either the type who wouldn’t even get arrested in the first place or have screwed up so badly that their wealth is a non-factor. How rich was Saddam Hussein?

Now, there is a grain of truth to what you are saying in that the non-wealthy don’t get the same treatment as the elite. but I think that that just highlights some of the reforms we need to make.

@RadioFlyer Louisiana is another one of the states that has issues with their legal system. It seems that the Confederacy doesn’t have as robust a legal system as the US. That is also a large part of why I think that all capital trials should be federal.

@LostInParadise You are really putting a major spin on my words. No, nobody should be able to buy their way out of prison or the death penalty. We have murderers that have been on death row for 30+years, and with over 3k death rowers in the Us along with thousands of lifers for violent murders, serial killings, etc. well…that is a substantial amount of money that could be put to better use IMO. Do you feel the same about killing terrorists, what about war?

If you believe that anyone that kills anyone for any reason is also a murderer how do you reconcile killing in the name of war, the killing of terrorists to protect the greater good? No difference IMO.
It is also estimated to cost close to 50k a year to house/care for a LWOP inmate of which these costs will rise substantially as the person ages and becomes more prone to illness and infirmity. If a LWOP inmate is incarcerated at age 30 and lives to age 65 the total costs, not accounting for inflation, would be in the $1.598 million range and the annual cost of a death rower sitting on death row for 20 years, at around $137k per year.

We’re talking massive amounts of monies spent to warehouse degenerates that could put to much better use. The monies spent on housing, food, medical care could be used to care for impoverished citizens, seniors, at risk children and dozens of other social services programs like homeless shelters/housing etc.

Why should vicious criminals be treated better and afforded more care and have their “retirement” paid for by the state/government than law abiding citizens?

@jerv, I was referring to the total expense for all people facing the death penalty. There just are not many people in that situation to save any significant portion of total inmate incarceration costs.

@Coloma , It is called logic. If excess cost is a necessary reason for the death penalty then paying the cost implies no death penalty. If someone is willing to pay for his own expenses then your excess cost argument simply does not apply.

War is another matter altogether. You can’t walk up to an opposing army and arrest them all. There is simply no feasible way of stopping that army without killing. Even so, there are international laws for the proper treatment of prisoners of war, and they don’t involve killing. Terrorism is a gray area, but even then the risks involved in taking someone alive are quite great.

@Coloma

I’m really trying to understand your logic here that those tried under death penalty cases usually have prior convictions. What it God’s hold name does that matter? Innocent of the crime they’re charged with is innocent of the crime they’re charged with, no matter what they may have been charged or convicted of in the past.

@LostInParadise It would be exceedingly rare for that to happen so it is really irrelevant if you ask me. You still have not answered my questions about how you reconcile “murder” in the name of war and terrorism but feel the most deplorable offenders in our prison system should have the luxury f being a kept person for the rest of their lives.

@Darth_Algar It doesn’t matter if the conviction is false, what I am saying is that most of the time it is suspects with prior records that are the first to become suspects in new crimes. Stands to reason. Doesn’t mean they deserve to be falsely accused but, it’s kinda like the boy who cried wolf, IF a suspect has a record it is obvious they will be amongst the first to be questioned or potentially arrested. This was in relation to what @jaytkay was saying about knowing multiple people that got off of death row and my reasoning that it is rare to be a model citizen with no priors and end up a suspect in a crime with death row possibility.

Those with prior records are always going to be the first to come under investigation, that’s all I’m saying so we can;t claim they are being unfairly singled out. Maybe unfairly convicted but not unfairly suspected.

I oppose the death penalty because of its inherent hypocritical message it sends to society. It makes absolutely no sense to pass a law defining the taking of another human’s life as seriously wrong, then turn around and pass another law granting to the state the right to do exactly that. In other words, what the state is saying is “it is wrong for you to commit murder, however, it is perfectly ok for us to murder you.”

Another objection I have concerns the development that has emerged in recent decades that requires juries of ordinary citizens, with no legal training (usually), to make the decision whether a newly convicted defendant receives life without parole or the death sentence. This is a burden that ordinary citizens should not be asked to bear because it makes them complicit participants in the convict’s murder (by the state) when it is ultimately carried out. How is that fair?

@sahID I hear you, I have felt the same way for many years, but recently am re-visiting the topic. I think if we want to be brutally honest then we also cannot condone “murdering” terrorists for their murderous crimes or justify any killings of war either. We can’t have our cake and eat it too, or cherry pick what accounts for acceptable or unacceptable killings under any circumstance. If we feel the need to take out extremist groups that threaten our or other countries how can we not also condone eliminating dire threats to our citizens at the hands of their own?

As with so many issues and episodes in our country, ‘money talks’. The flip-side to that is…..‘poor people walk’.

As long as the Durst family can throw millions at the best lawyers money can buy, allowing their their sociopath family member Robert to roam free for 35 years (and killing more people) while innocent people of little means are executed on a fairly regular basis, it is hard to believe that any right-thinking person can find our criminal justice system to be just fine the way it is…...

@Coloma would allow the Durst family to buy their way out of a death penalty, making a bad situation even worse.

@LostInParadise So, you think that people would pay millions of dollars to live in a cell 23 hours a day with minimal human contact and slowly lose their mind rather than face the sentence handed down by the courts? Seriously, the type of people who would do that would just hop in their private jet and go to a nation without extradition laws before that were even possible anyways.

And that assumes that the system would even allow that in the first place. Last I checked, no matter how expensive your lawyer is, once you’re sentenced, that’s it. You might get the sentence reduced at appeals, but that’s unlikely in the event that you got a unanimous enough verdict to earn a death sentence. And I don’t think that a court that decides a defendant is guilty enough to die would take that sort of bribe anyways.

I’m not buying that fallacious reasoning. If you say it’s logic, then you might want to avoid affirming the consequent or otherwise twisting causation and correlation.

@jerv, it is not a bribe and it is not fallacious reasoning. @Coloma ‘s argument, and perhaps yours as well, is that the only reason for the death penalty is that the prisoners are not worth the expense of keeping them alive. It then follows as surely as night follows day that if the prisoner pays the costs then there is no reason for the death penalty.

@LostInParadise Again, you are making accusatory statements as if they were fact.
, I said above that nobody should be able to buy their way out of a criminal situation, it may happen but I do not, even remotely condone that attitude.
Can you answer my question?
Do you condone murder in war and murder of terrorists and, if so, how do you reconcile those killings opposed to innocent individual humans being viciously murdered?

Why is it okay to execute an enemy of war that threatens our safety but not okay to execute a vicious criminal that preys on innocent people?

Have some of you posted there ? most likey below this permalink? You could paste it here.

@LostInParadise You are also overlooking that not all costs are monetary.

Consider the costs of building additional prisons as more cells are required. That money and real estate could be put to better use like low-cost housing or repairing our ailing infrastructure.

We seem to have issues with our power grid, and if I’m employing large number of people to build something, I would rather spend that taxpayer money on something that if of greater benefit to society than a high-cost warehouse. What is the ROI on a prison anyways, and how does that compare to a powerplant that can sell electricity? Or how about improving our highways to cut down on congestion enough to boost the effective MPG of our nation’s commuters, thus reducing our reliance on foreign oil? Kind of hard to do that if the land is used for human storage instead.

@Coloma

I don’t think anyone is claiming that those wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death are necessarily innocent of any and all crimes so I just don’t see the relevance of your argument there.

@Darth_Algar Not arguing, really, only interjecting that it is usually people with records that are the prime suspects, most, not all of the time. It would be highly unlikely someone like me with zero criminal background would be arrested for a random crime out of the blue. So, it seemed a relevant point in regards to @jaytkay ‘s original posting that most suspects have prior criminal records so they are more likely to be targeted in an investigation.

@Coloma

Yeah, but I didn’t see him necessarily arguing that those innocents were completely innocent of all crimes and with no prior record, just that they were innocent of the crime that put them on death row. But it’s irrelevant anyway, as we try people for the crime they’re charged with at the time, not the crimes they were charged with in the past.

@Darth_Algar Of course, just curious if the people he was talking about had violent backgrounds that would account for the potential of being falsely accused.

@Coloma, War is a different situation. I mentioned this above but I will repeat it. You can’t march onto a battlefield and just arrest everyone. Unfortunately, to stop an opposing army killing is necessary. Even in war there are international rules protecting prisoners, and the rules do not permit arbitrary killing.

@jerv, You can tally up the costs any way you want. The underlying assumption that you and @Coloma are making is that these costs can be greater than the value of a person’s life. Playing God in this way and saying that a person’s life is worth eliminating is not right. The whole way of thinking is off base.

If you really want to give a theoretical cost/benefit analysis of prison, then the comparison should be between the cost of imprisonment and the value of the crimes prevented by the imprisonment. If the value of the crime prevented by deterrence and confinement exceeds the cost of imprisonment then the imprisonment is worthwhile. Otherwise the system is not working. That the U.S. has both extremely high incarceration and crime rates indicates a systemic flaw in the way things are being done.

@LostInParadise And you assume all lives are infinitely valuable, unreservedly and without question, while I believe that there are some lives that are worth less.

Suppose, hypothetically, that a serial killer and a small child were in mortal danger and you could only save one. Would you decide by random means such as a coin toss, or would you agree with me that some lives are less valuable?

Confinement isn’t really a deterrent either. Like I told @gorillapaws earlier, some may see it as an incentive; confinement guarantees food and shelter, which is more than a lot of poor people have.

When we’ll lock someone away for a few years at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars per year over the theft of a couple of thousand dollars or less, then I think the reducing cost argument becomes a bit absurd.

@Darth_Algar ~Well, someone has to go to prison for theft, and we can’t send those who steal millions or billions.

I don’t think anyone here would say that the legal system we have isn’t in need of reform, and you are entirely correct that it doesn’t make sense to spend more on prosecuting someone than the harm they inflicted. But when you consider how seldom the wealthy are even charged with things that get us plebes not only arrested but sent off to become the man-bitch of cell block D, we are getting more into issues of what our priorities are as a society.

@jerv, One infinity can be larger than another if one is faced with the unpleasant task of choosing one life over another.

If our treatment of the poor is so shabby and our treatment of prisoners is so pleasant that the poor see imprisonment as a step up then our social policies are in very serious need of change.

With regard to the cost of imprisoning someone for theft, remember that the true benefit is the cost of the crimes prevented, which may well be in excess of the specific crime committed. It may well be that a reduced sentence would be more cost effective. If there is no way to get the numbers come out then the system is broken. We might as well not put the thief in prison and just have the taxpayers directly compensate the person who was robbed, since that would be more cost effective.

Unfortunately, however many the mental gymnastics we go through to determine what is fair or good, our nation operates under a set of written laws. And being written by man, they are inherently flawed. It is good to be able to discuss these things in a semi-open forum like this. We all know some people can afford more justice than others, but is is also true that over time our society creates a mish-mash of well intentioned laws and penalties through which a person can land in jail for ridiculous things. An indigent can indeed find three squares and a cot in prison better than a previous life and prefer to stay there than be free and live on an uncertain street. We are a bit afield of the death penalty part of this discussion, but there are ties here. A well intentioned, poorly written law can cause a person to be sentenced to die for something ridiculous (don’t know if it’s true, but certainly possible) and someone could be put down unjustly. But that is a price we as a whole have to pay for the kind of society in which we live. We must have faith that our legislators are smart enough to keep that from happening.

Our legislators are very smart…..in that “crafty” sort of way.

Let me ask you this….If one of your family members or someone else you love were on Death Row right now, but completely innocent (due to some fuzzy-headed “eyewitness”), would you go visit them, and tell them not to worry, and to “have faith in our legislators”??

@Darth_Algar Agree with you there, keeping petty criminals incarcerated is also a huge drain of financial resources, the lions share perhaps.

@LostInParadise I too do not believe that all lives are of equal value, I believe lives start off equally but depending on choices made do not end up that way.
The life of a murder victim takes precedence over the life of a violent offender. You can’t possibly believe that some murderous serial killer, pedophile, rapist, that viciously murders children or young people has the same value as that of their victims. Victims rights should always take precedence over a vicious killers rights.

As far as war, well…our military is training people to be killers, look at how we glorified American Sniper, cheering on this soldier for his hundreds of precision kills.
Plenty of questionable killings and torture takes place in our military regardless of the “rules.” If you’re okay with killing terrorists and funding training in our military to create super snipers then it is hypocritical of you to be against the death penalty. The principal remains the same across the board, someone else determining others deaths based on a value judgement.

@RadioFlyer let me ask you this. If your loved one was viciously murdered and their killer walked free on a technicality how would you feel? Justice is a two way street and many absolutely guilty people walk every day, more so than the few wrongly convicted.

@Coloma “If you’re okay with killing terrorists and funding training in our military to create super snipers then it is hypocritical of you to be against the death penalty.”

This is logically incorrect. It is perfectly rational to believe that we should have a military with well-trained snipers and still oppose capital punishment. The objective of the military its to eliminate threats to the citizens and allies of your country. A terrorist who is actively plotting harm to your country or allies is a threat. A murderer who has been apprehended is no longer a threat—they’re in custody. Killing them brings no more security to the state than imprisoning them in a super max facility for the duration of their natural lives. For this same reason, it’s wrong to execute enemy combatants who have thrown down their weapons and surrendered.

@Coloma Guilty people are going to walk on technicalities now and forever. That will never justify the state-sponsored murdering of dozens of wrongly convicted people.

Your logic seems to be, Kill every single person on Death Row, just to be sure that the guilty ones get what’s coming to them. If we must wrongly and unjustly kill dozens of innocent people to insure that we get the guilty ones…..well, that’s just too bad.

If I am misunderstanding your point, I apologize….but I don’t think I am….

@gorillapaws If we were able to take out the Ted Bundys of the world while they were still in the plotting stages of their murderous sprees what’s the difference? A threat to ones health and safety and right to pursue liberty and happiness, whether on a level of country or the individual, well…those convicted of 1st degree murder sure have fucked up those rights for their victims don’t’cha think? haha
You don’t think our government has killed non-terrorists based on certain questionable affiliation rather than hard evidence? Of course they have.

@RadioFlyer So if you want it to be accepted that guilty people are going to walk on technicalities why shouldn’t it also be accepted that the occasional innocent might be wrongly incarcerated or put to death? Same rope, different ends, can’t have one without the other.
I advocate death for those that have been convicted beyond a shadow of a doubt, via hard evidence, like their semens DNA in the vagina of their 7 year old victim. Not based on heresay or flimsy circumstantial evidence.

Hard evidence. For those that are convicted beyond a shadow of a doubt, yes, I think their executions should be carried out quickly and they should not be allowed to clog the system for decades with endless appeals. If we’re going to argue what is the more humane consequence, death is more humane than spending 30 years in isolation.

@Coloma If police can arrest the next Ted Bundy and change him with conspiracy to commit murder, that’s awesome. If he resists arrest and starts shooting at the police and they return fire and kill him, that’s fine too. In that situation he’s an imminent threat to other people. When he’s in custody, he’s no longer a threat. That’s the point.

What would be wrong is to assassinate the guy because police suspect him of plotting murders.

@Coloma While I won’t pretend to have a problem with sending some of these godawful, dead-nuts guilty scumbags into the next world, I will never agree with the notion that it is acceptable to also execute countless innocent individuals just because “our system isn’t perfect”. It is very, VERY imperfect.

If this is really the best we can do, then we shouldn’t do it at all….

the occasional innocent might be wrongly incarcerated or put to death?

It’s not occasional.

In the US, 153 people have been sentenced to death since 1973 and later been acquitted or pardoned or charges were dismissed.

Most spent over a decade in prison before getting out. And these are just the lucky ones who had the expensive legal help to which very few prisoners have access.

List of Those Freed From Death Row

@LostInParadise “One infinity can be larger than another….”
With that one statement, I must now conclude that you do not know the meanings of words, or at least not the commonly accepted meanings. And when words have meanings that different between two people, meaningful communication is impossible.
It’s also blatantly obvious that either you ignored my comment immediately preceding that post (only the first sentence was directed at a specific person) or just don’t understand, so go back and re-read it. And read it again and again. And when you think you got my point there, read it a few more times because I’m not sure you are even really listening, merely reading without comprehension.
And your last paragraph is actually a strong argument for killing off the entire human race. Think how many crimes would be prevented if our species didn’t even exist!

This may be the last time I even address you; it depends on whether I feel you and I are even speaking the same language, and whether or not you make yourself such an easy target that it’s not even sporting to point out where you went wrong.

@jaytkay You seem like someone who does understand at least part of where I’m coming from. The system does need reform. The deck is stacked and the system flawed, but it would be that way even if we just warehoused criminals until they went insane instead of giving them the humane release of a needle in the arm.
Even if we abolished capital punishment, the system, would still be just as screwed up.

@RadioFlyer Are you willing to pay for the warehousing then? If so, do it on your own property as I would rather use open land for low-cost housing something that is unavoidably necessary rather than a budgetary drain that could be avoided.

@jerv “Warehousing” ?? Is that what we’re calling it now ???

Yeah, until these geniuses figure out how to absolutely determine the guilty from the innocent, I will accept that my tax dollars be spent to (ahem)...“warehouse” these human beings. And yes, if it prevents wrongfully convicted people from being strapped to a gurney, the state is welcome to set up shop on my property, if that’s what it takes…..

@RadioFlyer Well, they surely aren’t productive members of society. Most that earn more than about ten consecutive life sentences or who can get twelve out of twelve jurors to agree that execution is warranted and have that decision survive the levels of mandatory appeal generally never will be. So yes, since they aren’t doing anything useful, they pretty much are just warehoused.

If you wish to protect innocent victims then you will need to reform the entirety of the human experience. Cure cancer, prevent natural disaster, and all that. I hate to burst your bubble, but innocent people get hurt all the time. And honestly, compared to being kept in a small room all by myself for years and years, I think that it’d actually be more humane to kill them rather than torture them regardless.

Also, do you have the support of more than 50% of the people in your area? It’s not just your land. And are your neighbors also willing to tell homeless people that they must remain homeless because you don’t want to execute the worst humanity has to offer simply because not all on Death Row are actually guilty?

Or how about we go the other way; build the prison adopt a few homeless people. Give them food and shelter as well. I mean, if Jeffrey Dahmer deserves three meals a day and a warm bed, then so the veterans you see panhandling on the street, soaked in their own piss. Sure, it’s still more expensive, so you’ll be raising taxes on all of us, but it’s fair to make people pay for stuff they don’t want anyways, so why not?

@gorillapaws Agreed, but our government takes out those they suspect of mere plotting all the time.
@RadioFlyer “Warehousing” is a mainstream term for our overcrowded penal system.
I don’t want to see innocent people lose their lives either, but..I’d rather an innocent lose their lives than a repeat offender that will go on to claim many more lives of allowed to walk free.
Sometimes sacrifice for the greater good is where it’s at, this applies to war as well as crime. If I could sacrifice my life to save a dozen children from being raped and murdered by a sociopathic pedophile I’d do it in a heartbeat.

@jaytkay Here’s a short list of 70 something freed/paroled killers that went on to kill again. Many more dangerous people are released/paroled than there are wrongfully convicted. For every wrongfully convicted person there are dozens more that go on to kill countless innocents.

www.wesleylowe.com/repoff.html

One thing I forgot to reiterate from my original post.

“I am for, but only in very narrow circumstances.”

That includes using advances in forensics to be more sure of exonerating the innocent, and erring on the side of caution in cases that don’t clear a high hurdle of “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

It also includes making all capital cases federal as history has shown that certain states cannot be trusted, and I trust federal courts to more accurately represent the collective will of all Americans than a state court who is merely concerned with a relatively small segment of our society.

The implication there is that there would be some pretty hefty reforms in our legal system. That’s a pretty big detail to overlook. So don’t assume that just because I am pro death penalty that I am saying that we’ve been doing it right. The fact that innocent people get released after tests that were either not performed as a part of due diligence or that were merely technologically impossible years ago is proof that we have been doing it wrong.

@jerv Fear not, you are not “bursting” any “bubble” of mine. I am a Vietnam combat veteran, and have physically witnessed brave, “innocent people” (some being close personal friends) being hurt and killed for no valid reason, so please don’t try to ‘school’ me on that subject.

@Coloma If you would honestly be fine with any “warehoused” innocent person losing their life toward what you envision as some ‘greater good’, then I can’t accept or respect anything else that you have to say on this subject.

Apparently, you both lack the capacity to consider that what happens to many people can possibly happen to you or those you love, just as simply as one “witness” pointing to one of you as a “Positive ID”, just because whoever actually commited the act happens to look something like you do.

A long shot, I know, but your apparent lack of empathy for so many innocent “warehoused” people is just sad and disappointing….

For every wrongfully convicted person there are dozens more that go on to kill countless innocents.

“Dozens more”? I gave you 153.

So you have a couple of thousand examples of people who left death row to murder more?

That sounds interesting. What are their names?

@RadioFlyer I feel that victims rights take precedence over those of dangerous criminals, when we care more about the rights of criminals than we do their victims,that’s a huge step in the wrong direction.
How does that make me lacking in empathy? Your damn right, I care more for the victim than I do the perpetrator. Sure, I feel for fucking psycho killers too, they were once innocent babies and children but whether through nature or nurture they went terribly wrong, but…there are also plenty of people that survive shitty childhoods and don’t grow up to be cold blooded and/or sociopathic killers and sex offenders.

My empathy is for the innocent victims yes it is and rightfully so,

The death penalty does not help the victims for two reasons. Firstly, the victims are dead. They are beyond help. Even if we extend the definition of victim to include friends and family, killing someone does them no benefit. It just adds another dead body. You are back to eye for an eye thinking.

@jerv, I don’t know what you are talking about. I could do without your rude remarks.

I am not seeing anything new being brought to this discussion. As far as I am concerned, it has come to an end.

@RadioFlyer I can see how that might lead you to be tired of seeing death.

However, I’m not sure that the alternative is much better. I’m interested to hear how you feel that psychological torture is more humane than a painless execution. How you feel that suffering trumps finality. Is it that death is the absolute worst thing that you can think of?

Maybe that’s why you and I differ; I can think of worse things than death.

It is a form of contract killing. You get to kill someone without feeling morally or legally tainted by it.

Before taking leave of this thread, here is a summary of the case against the death penalty.

Killing is immoral, whether done by criminals or the State.

We could save a lot of money by killing all prisoners, but we can’t do this because it is immoral. And that applies to the life of everyone, even the most vile criminals. We do not have the right to play God and pick and choose whose lives should be taken.

Are some lives more worth saving than others? Sure, I would save the life of the President over a homeless person, the life of a child over a ninety year old and the life of a law abiding citizen over a serial killer. Fortunately, we do not need to make such choices, so this is all irrelevant to the death penalty.

Is killing necessary in war? Yes, unfortunately. You can’t stop an invading army by trying to arrest them. Again, this argument is totally irrelevant to the death penalty.

Is life imprisonment worse than death? I have never heard of anyone of sound mind and body clamoring to be killed in place of life imprisonment. The appeals process provides a clear history of people who have felt otherwise.

So summing up, in case you missed the point, the death penalty is wrong because killing is immoral and should be avoided whenever possible.

Long-term incarceration should always be the best choice, if only due to the number of times (and only a pretty regular basis) some unfortunate, unlucky guy loses 25 years of his life on Death Row, only to be proven innocent by modern DNA technology..

He gets to go home and hug his family, but will never retrieve those 25 years. It logically follows that countless people before him were actually executed, even though they were falsely convicted. They had to die knowing that they did not commit the crime they were convicted of, and their families have to suffer that loss as well as the indignity of the general public presuming that this person deserved it.

Capital punishment is a little like the military and war. So many people are “for it”, as long as it is someone else’s kid who must go do the killing…..or be killed.

“USA….USA….USA…...........wait, wait..you want MY kid to go ??”

“No way, man….no friggin’ way….”

That’s not patriotism, folks…...that’s called hypocricy…

While again I must say I don’t lose any sleep when real monsters are put to sleep,but with that said how does the Government or society deal when an innocent person is wrongly put to death??? Oooopppppssss SORRY, we thought we had the right person!!??
Who pays for that little fuck up??
You want to fry the evil devil spawn, but when it turns out you fried the wrong person then what??
You or we in some cases, I will admit want the scum off the planet, but if one innocent is put to death is that not a horrible crime that someone should pay for as well???

‘Murder” is defined as “unlawfully” killing based on malice aforethought without justification/excuse.
Therefor the state is not “murdering” anybody, they are lawfully executing those that unlawfully killed.

@RadioFlyer read the lengthy list of offenders that I posted that were let go, paroled or escaped to go on and murder again and again. No system is perfect and a few may fall throguh the cracks, the good, the bad and the extremely ugly. If you want to talk about hypocrisy well, you are so concerned with the occasional innocent person being incarcerated or executed, with that rationale then we should ban cars, fire, electricity, airplanes and other modern inventions because innocent people may be killed. 45,000 innocent people die in traffic accidents every year but nobody is abolishing motor vehicles.

Nor are they strapping automobiles to a gurney and asking if they have any last words.

Bad analogy.
No sale…..

@RadioFlyer I’m not trying to sell you on anything, I am simply sharing the change of heart I have undergone the last few years, with my heart being in the victims camp not the perpetrators.
My analogy is a perfectly sound analogy point being that if one is so concerned with innocent people losing their lives there are multiple everyday things we accept for the greater good of having transportation, electricity, and other mainstream comforts and necessities inspite of the fact these things can and kill innocent people every day. You can’t cherry pick the innocent people you think should be exempt from death. If you really care for innocent people losing their lives you must include the victims of violent offenders first and foremost of all.

I will always be more concerned for the innocent victims of crime and so the hell what if wanton killers are strapped to a gurney and given a lethal injection, they gave up their rights when they chose to kill their victims and I doubt they asked their victims of they had any last words. Commit violent unspeakable murders, be found guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, you forfeit the right to your own life.
Victims rights always take precedence over criminals rights, victims and their famlies deserve to see justice served in whatever manner the court determines.

Murder is indeed the wrong term for government killing. The correct term is democide

Lawfully putting to death those that kill unlawfully….kinda self explanatory. Determining execution is left in the hands of the law not the lawless.

Talk about your cherry-picking. My point is and always has been, you don’t just strap everyone convicted of murder to a gurney and send them on their way. It is a morbid statistical fact that wrongly-convicted people are “disposed of” on a fairly regular basis along with the many who clearly deserve it.

Your logic (such as it is) seems to be, “Well…..so what….??”

Yes, our very imperfect system of justice does allow some of the worst people to walk free again, but killing everybody just to be sure that we ‘get them all’ only makes our justice system even MORE imperfect, shamefully unfair, and pretty disgusting, especially in this day and age.

So, once again….sorry….No Sale….

I will always be more concerned for the innocent victims of crime

People wrongfully convicted are innocent victims of crime.

@RadioFlyer Beyond a shadow of a doubt, hard evidence, is not an kill ‘em all philosophy. Do not put words in my mouth that were never spoken, but yep, if once in a great while someone falls through the cracks, well… as has been said, life isn’t fair. It’s not fair that an innocent toddler is sodomized and murdered and their killer is paroled to kill again either.
These occasional mistakes are not Hollywood movie themes, 99.9% of the time the falsely accused have lengthy backgrounds of violence and crime so, in reality, they set themselves up even if they are not guilty of the particular crime that lands them on death row. If innocent people don’t want to be wrongly convicted maybe they shouldn’t have a record 40 miles long to begin with which is almost always the case.

A suspect with a history of crime and violence will always be the first to go under the microscope.
The far bigger problem IMO is releasing/paroling/exonerating vicious killers, sex offenders, pedophiles, to go forth and kill again, I see this imperfection in the system as far more disgusting and shamefully unfair in this day and age. My sympathies will always be for the victims of violent crime and their families before that of violent offenders.

@jaytkay Yes, if it is true that someone is just randomly accused of a crime with no prior record that sucks but otherwise, you set yourself up by having a criminal history which lends itself to your being a prime suspect which is the case most of the time. The law will always look at those with priors first and rightfully so. If there is no hard eveidence then of course they should be exonerated.

@Coloma

I’m going to be frank here – the kind of attitude you display on this topic scares me far more than any serial killer has.

@Coloma Sounds like the justice system in Chile in the 1970s. Or Poland in the 1940s.

@Darth Algar What scares me more than the occasional wrongly convicted are the violent offenders that are released to re-violate innocent people, usually the most defenseless women and children. One wrongly released/paroled violent offender will take many more lives than the one wrongly convicted.

To the rest of you,

I JUST said if there is no hard evidence than of course nobody should be put to death.Yes, it is true, I have no problem with the death penalty for those violent offenders that have been proven, through hardcore evidence, to be guilty of heinous acts.
Lastly, my reasoning, which is quite logical only promotes that if one doesn’t want to risk the potential of being falsely convicted don’t commit a crime in the first place.
If I don’t want to risk getting lung cancer I won’t smoke, if I don’t want to risk being convicted of a crime I won’t have a record.

If one is diagnosed with lung cancer, sure, there is a small chance you contracted it never having smoked a day in your life, but, if the doctor sees you have a long history of smoking they are going to deduce that the odds are you contracted cancer from your habits. Same with criminals that have a record, obviously they are going to be more likely to be suspected than someone with no criminal history which is also taken into account in our system. First time offenders are given some leniency in most cases, depending on the crime.

Pretty simple, nothing scary about it. Common sense, don’t want to be a suspect refrain from having a criminal record, this fact has nothing to do with me promoting a “kill ‘em all” mentality.

@Coloma , You can’t possibly believe that lawful equates to moral. Slavery used to be completely lawful, as were the Japanese internment camps created in the U.S. for Japanese-Americans during WW II. The Nazi concentration camps and the Russian gulags were completely lawful. You have some rethinking to do. Capital punishment in the 31 states is lawful but not moral.

@RadioFlyer You’re so wrapped up in mistakes of the past that you utterly ignore things the fact that I’ve already stated multiple times that we need reforms, like making the sort of testing that is freeing the wrongly convicted part of the process to makr sure innocent people don’t even get sentenced.

So long as you have your fingers in your ears, you’re not actually part of a discussion; you’re just a broken record. If you want to prove me wrong, then address the points I brought up directly and show that you can listen well enough to engage in a back-and-forth exchange.

Good god you people need a life.

@LostInParadise It is not immoral to lawfully execute someone for unlawfully killing others and this cannot be compared to slavery and the Holocost. Modern law is not a twisted dictatorship or failure to see those different than us as sub-human. Murder has always been against the laws of civilized mankind.
Some force must uphold the law, what else do you suggest?

A fair trial by ones peers is what leads to convictions.
I didn’t make up the definition of murder, I didn’t determine that murder is unlawful or illegal, these standards have been set since biblical times, and what is moral about vicious killers raping and murdering children?
That’s my whole point, being more concerned about the poor criminal than the victim, what’s moral about that? All lives are not equal based solely on the existence of a human body.

If one has zero regard for others, the laws as we know them and contributes nothing but pain and suffering through their existence it is hardly immoral to dispense of them in the best interest of the greater good.

In that thread below permalink they all seem to be addressing pro or against death penalty, which is not what the OP is asking. If you are one of them, I’m hoping that you will paste your post/s over here, and flag the one/s there as Off topic. That is the only reason I posted this OP.

@jerv When anyone makes narrow-mined, shallow statements such as “I think that it’d actually be more humane to kill them”, it tends to dissuade many thinking people (including me) from further exploring your other thoughts on this subject (or what you might see as “fingers in the ears”).

Call my comments ‘a broken record’ if you wish, but that doesn’t make them any less valid than what you apparently see as some kind of acceptable solution.

Ask 100 Death Row inmates if they feel that “it would be more humane to kill them”. Maybe one or two might agree with you. The other 98 or 99 would not be at all impressed with this pathetic, thoughtless suggestion.

This is ‘Broken Record’ signing off, and signing out of this very sad discussion…

@RadioFlyer No need to go away in a huff playing victim. I think we all pose thoughtful and valid points of view here and rousing discussion does not need to resort to childish pouting and taking your G.I. Joe and going home. This is not a sad discussion, it is a bunch of very thoughtful people sharing their thoughts on a highly controversial subject. Hell, I’m taking plenty of hits for some of my sentiments.

Oh well, my thoughts on this particular subject hardly define the totality of who I am.

Quality of life is always more important than quantity, hence the reason many choose to take their own lives when faced with disabling and terminal illness. There is nothing “pathetic and thoughtless” about advocating quality of life and therefore a life in prison, losing all freedoms, being kept in isolation, and risking being killed by your fellow inmates is hardly a life anyone would aspire to. I am sure many would prefer execution to an existence such as that. I know I would.

It IS more “humane” to euthanize any living organism over a non-life of suffering, imprisonment and isolation.
Give me liberty or give me death comes to mind.
The risk of attempted suicide and suicide is very high in jail/prison.

@Coloma Given a proven-and-verified unwillingness (inability?) to address specific points, there’s a few people that I don’t think are here for exchange of ideas or two-way discussion.
While I welcome opposition, I only welcome those who are able and willing to engage in back-and-forth dialog, and am saddened that there seems to be less of that here than I’d hoped.

@jerv Even worse when what one is trying to say ends up being so spun around that even with repeated explanation you can never extract yourself from the spin cycle. lol

When anyone on any forum uses terms like “I don’t want to burst your bubble” or “show that you can listen well enough”, that is no longer engaging in respectful discussion, and begins to approach arrogant, condescending, didactic (and very tiresome) behavior.

@jerv You likely don’t see yourself as coming across as having so much conceit, but you do. I stopped tolerating that act by smarter people than you a long time ago.

@Coloma I am not in any way “leaving in a huff” or “taking my G.I. Joe and going home”. We are obviously not getting anywhere here, and I have more important (and less annoying) things to achieve with my time.

Have a nice life….and stay out of prison…..

” I stopped tolerating that act by smarter people than you”

Respectful discussion?

@jaytkay Yep, mirror mirror, I think most of us have remained quite respectful without resorting to put downs, besides, who says a discussion has to “go” anywhere? I enjoy the process and am not invested in any right/wrong, win/lose dichotomies. There doesn’t have to be any definitive conclusions, I’m okay with being partly right and partly wrong. Usually what it shakes down to for everyone. haha

Murdering an innocent person is a horrible crime, and the penalty in some states is the death penalty, the murderer has to pay for his or her crime.

Now when the state puts one innocent person to death,is that not a horrible crime that someone should pay for?
Who is the actual murderer in that situation,and should they not pay for that crime????

@SQUEEKY2 Fair enough, sure, whomever had a hand in the conviction from police to prosecutors let them be tried as well.

@SQUEEKY2

Prosecutors are absolutely immune from lawsuits. Police and investigators are less so, but it is very difficult to go after them. Especially if you’re dead.

Also judges can send someone to be killed even if the jury does not.

And you know when judges kill people like that? In election years. They kill people to look “tough on crime” in an election year.

In an election year in Alabama, judge-imposed death sentences are 4 times more common.

Here’s a very detailed article about how judges kill people for personal gain.
In Alabama, a judge can override a jury that spares a murderer from the death penalty.

@jaytkay And would they have that right if all capital cases were federal? Alabama is part of the reason I don’t trust that power in the hands of states to begin with.