Would you want the death penalty for the murderer if your child were killed?

I cannot imagine that the anger/outrage/grief would ever abate enough to allow me even the thought of compassion over revenge. Just thinking about it raises my anxiety levels through the roof.

I live very close to Sandy Hook and we are coming up on the tenth anniversary, that also probably colors my thinking here.

I’ll never know for sure because I don’t have kids. I’m inclined to say retribution should be returned in the manner in which the crime was committed. So, firing squad.

It’s hard. The death penalty means the murderer gets to think about his own death for a few years before they get around to it. And in the literal days, hours, minutes and seconds leading up to it…...yeah. I kind of like that idea.

I don’t have kids but I’ve been thinking about this question.
Susan Smith, who murdered her 2 sons by drowning them has been reported as having a boyfriend while in prison.
Jodi Arias, who murdered her ex boyfriend has been shown smiling and laughing and singing while in prison.
In my mind, if a loved one of mine has been murdered, I don’t want the murderer enjoying themselves. At all. Prison shouldn’t be enjoyable.
So I think I might want the death penalty for anyone that killed my loved ones.

Life in prison without parole IS a death sentence. The convict will die in jail.

The instinct to want others to suffer (even horrible people), is grotesque. It’s a human attribute that we should be ashamed of, not embraced or codified into our laws and legal system. Retributive criminal justice is ineffective, doesn’t deter crime and costs a lot of money.

With that personal connection, OF COURSE I would. That’s human nature. That’s emotion. And that’s precisely why we don’t let victims decide sentences for their criminals.

I’m opposed to the death penalty. Mostly because our criminal justice system’s error rate is simply too high. There’s too little accountability and transparency from the police level to the prosecutor level, and even in our trials. The worst is prosecutors who, in most states, get away with things that would get someone locked up or disbarred if they weren’t acting as a prosecutor.

In a hypothetical system that had a zero error rate, i’d be pro death penalty for anyone whose crimes are so horrific that they cannot ever be released into society. But we don’t have a zero error rate or anything remotely close to it. If you are sentence to jail unjustly you can keep fighting to exonerate your name. You can strive to restore SOME semblance of life. The advantages of the death penalty are too small to justify given the risk of the state executing someone unjustly.

In my mind, if a loved one of mine has been murdered, I don’t want the murderer enjoying themselves. At all. Prison shouldn’t be enjoyable.

I agree! I wish the death penalty came sooner simply because I don’t think it’s fair for the low-life to be able to file appeal after appeal for 10–12 years while the taxpayers are paying for their food and board.

However, there are circumstances in which I would want the person to serve some time in prison and then get out with enough years left to live to have some sort of life.

@gorillapaws Yeah, while we pay for their meals, housing, tv, exersize equipment, library, vocational programs, education and possible degrees, etc, etc. Plus, many many times a murderer isn’t given life without parole, they’re given a sentence of 25 years and are out in 15 or so for good behavior. Makes me sick. edited

No.
I’m vehemently against the death penalty, for several reasons.
Few of which are cases that have turned out to be mistaken identity victims, or biased jurors, DNA mistakes, etc.
An other is “thou shalt not kill”, especially not being a state/government.
Most importantly, I feel, it says something about me, if, in my name (if I’d agree with said punishment), I’d retaliate in the same manner (through the State/judicial system) as I apparently dispise.

@smudges “Yeah, while we pay for their meals, housing, tv, exersize equipment, library, vocational programs, education and possible degrees, etc, etc.”

The cost to execute someone is much higher. Lawyers are very expensive. As for expediting the process, look at Thomas Haynesworth to understand why that’s a fucked up (and ultimately a racist) idea.

Ultimately restorative justice models instead of retributive justice costs less money and reduces crime and recidivism. But I don’t own a private prison that funds think tanks to promote “tough on crime” talking points in conservative media.

I am not in that position. But that said, knowing the murderer of my child is no longer breathing air and consuming resources would certainly help me find closure. While alive and in prison there are continuing appeals, contact with prisoner fans, potential for retribution, and who knows how many other bad dreams caused by the thought of sharing the planet with that individual.

I couldn’t possibly be against the death penalty as there’s a whole host of people I’d want to see dead who haven’t even been charged with crimes!

I’m only broadly against the death penalty because the justice system is too incompetent, classist, and corrupt. There’s a long history of very dubious murder charges over the years.

If it were my own children murderer (I’ve no children), or my cat killed (I have a cat) and it was practically certain who the perpertrator was—I would want to carry out the sentence myself, preferably after a few weeks of torture at one of those black sites the CIA uses.

I’m about 20 minutes from Sandy Hook and friends with a lot of people who live there. It is a lovely area and the people that I know there don’t make this a topic at all, ever, unless in passing or someone else brings it up.

I think I would be torn between wanting the ultimate revenge, which means death to the murderers, vs. wanting them to suffer in prison. On one hand, @LuckyGuy is correct, they’d be constantly appealing and everything, but on the other hand, hopefully they’d be totally miserable and getting their asses kicked and stuff like that. It’s hard to say. I’d say on this topic I am inconclusive.

No. I’d want to torture them, break every bone in their body, and then slowly strangle them to death. But that’s why we don’t put victims or their families in charge of justice.

Well spoken @SavoirFaire.

I think some people here are not quite getting the point. This is less about being for or against the death penalty, and more about the reaction to your child being slaughtered in such a horrific manner,

I can’t imagine feeling relief that another person has been put to death. I’m with @gorillapaws.

Does the person pose a threat going forward? That’s the key to me.

Take the Parkland shooter – he’s young, he premeditated his actions, and he could absolutely be considered a potential threat 20–30 years from now. So, in that case YES, capitala punishment for him is acceptable.

I think there’s a threat difference – a qualitative difference – between the Parkland or the Kenosha killers, and the person who robs a liquor store and shoots the owner. Yes, the victim is just as dead, but I would argue that the robbery was a one-off opportunistic killing, and not an ongoing pattern. So the liquor store guy can rot in prison, that’s fine with me.

Vengeance doesn’t make good public policy.

Here’s a follow up question since the issue of possible error was raised. Does it make a difference to you in terms of being for the death penalty for the murderer if their guilt is absolutely clear as in the case of the Parkland shooter?

If I’m against the death penalty then it wouldn’t suddenly change my position if my child was killed, @canidmajor.
In Nicholas Cruz’ case the death penalty was not on the table.

@janbb I don’t think the parkland shooter’s guilt is “absolutely clear.” I think it’s obvious that he shot those kids, but murder requires mental states in the mind of the killer. I can’t go back in time and read his mind at the moment of the killing (and if I could I’d just prevent the thing entirely). That said, there may be technologies that are developed in the future that could plug in to this guy’s brain. Maybe that could help us learn stuff about why this happens to prevent further shooters? Maybe it could ultimately exonerate him and somehow demonstrate he’s not capable of the requisite cognitive processes in which case he belongs in a mental facility for the rest of his life.

The point is that there’s no certainty. Our system relies on evidence, testimony, and a flawed system to infer these things after the fact by a jury. It’s imperfect. Life in prison without parole, is a death sentence. It’s that simple.

This is a heart wrenching question, and one that I pray I will never know intimately.

I am against the death penalty in all cases.

I am a human with all the foils of that existence. One of the attributes of being human is having emotions. I have plenty of them. I am deeply committed to a daily meditation practice in an effort to put the emotions in their place. Another outcome of my meditation practice is that it also puts my thoughts in their place as well. What daily meditation has taught me is that I’m flawed.

My flaws lead me to live my life with certain ideas and hopes. One of the ideas is that I vote for people I would prefer to have making decisions about large societal questions since I can’t have a direct voice in those decisions. Besides voting, I regularly call my elected officials about issues that are dear to me. (I learned from an organization that elected officials pay more attention to phone calls to their offices than they do to emails or regular mail.) Calling takes 2 minutes of my time.

I trust that the people I vote for will use reason and evidence and not emotions to make decisions about matters such as the death penalty.

I love my children. They are the only family I have since my parents disowned me. Their well being is something I think about daily. I cannot imagine my horror if something unspeakable were to happen to any of them. This is a matter I will not spend my time contemplating.

I am opposed to the death penalty. Since murder is abhorrent, how could we possibly use it as a punishment? Isn’t that hypocritical? How can killing the murderer compensate for their crime? The murderer should be imprisoned for life unless there are clear indications of rehabilitation and remorse.

The death penalty ends the life of the convicted person, but it does not end the misery and suffering. That belongs to the killer’s family. They have undoubtedly already suffered things that the families of the innocent can’t imagine. What’s the good of adding to that?

Any violent death has many victims besides the person who was murdered, beginning but not ending with the family and close associates of the deceased. That includes the people who love the killer even as they take in and come to live with the obscenity of the killer’s act.

So no, I don’t think I would want the death penalty for the person guilty of killing my son. I would hope instead, over time, to see recognition of the depth of the horror perpetrated and genuine remorse for it. I would also hope to see real effort toward moral regeneration.

I edited a sociology book once that was about the death penalty, arguing that in itself it’s cruel and unusual punishment because of what it does to the accused beforehand, a process of dehumanizing so the execution team can carry out the sentence, and what it does to the team as human beings to perform death work. It was a very detailed and compelling case against the death penalty.

This, however, is a personal emotional response to the question and not an appeal to the law. Because of my sons’ lifestyles, I have had to think about the possibility of losing them to sudden and even violent death.

Lol wtf is restorative justice for a mass shooter!? Do you even hear yourself?

Yes, I would want the death penalty, and I’d offer to do it with my own two hands.

My thoughts would be with my child and not with the murderer. I couldn’t care less about the murderer but I would want to be assured he could never walk the streets again.

@flutherother Well, in the Parkland case this is after the trial which was three or four years after the shootings. Which is not to say that your thoughts aren’t still with your child but I was kind of struck by how many really felt they wanted the death penalty.

Categorically no. I’m one of those bizarre people who would try to get to know the killer so that I might find peace through understanding.

I’m sure there would be moments that I would want to kill the person as violently as possible, but I could never. I don’t have it in me. And I could never participate in destroying someone’s humanity by making them do it in my place.

My issues with the death penalty are in practice, not in principle. I do not have a problem with death as a punishment. Death as punishment has been a part of many societies throughout history, and as much as we try and tell ourselves that life in prison is worse, paying for a crime with your life is still the ultimate punishment. I don’t know how I would feel, but I would not be surprised if my emotional reaction would be to want the murderer to pay with his life. The death penalty as practiced is absurd, though, often taking decades to be carried out, lethal injections are often botched in disturbing ways…if it were a few days after the crime and the murderer just gets his head cut off like in medieval times, I could probably get behind it. But that’s never going to happen, so in general I oppose the death penalty and life in prison is good enough.

@rebbel Why do you say the death penalty was not on the table? i didn’t follow the trial but it is my understanding that the victims’ parents very much thought that the death penalty was an option.

@rebbel Get back to me on that when your position of privilege has changed. By “privilege” I mean when you have a healthy, unmurdered, child.

I spent the day with my child today, which makes this question all the more poignant to me.
Absolute principles often waver when they are tested under extreme circumstances, it is too easy to state, unequivocally, a position that one hasn’t even wandered close to.

@janbb You are correct, it was on the table.
Mistakenly I thought it was either life, or life without parole.
I stand corrected.

@canidmajor I don’t need to rethink my opinion, it’s one that I have as long as I can remember.
I’m 100% seconding @tinyfaery‘s response.
On top on my own.

Oh, heck yes. Kill that SOB (or DOB) the same way he/she killed my child.

I never support the death penalty.

It would be a case by case decision I guess. If my child were killed without real intent, I wouldn’t want the death penalty. In the case of Parkland, Cruz was a repeat criminal that was never charged. On one hand, he was a notoriously bad individual as everyone knew so killing him would be a quick way to deal with him. On the other hand, the people that put the policies in place that protected him from prior punishments are accessories in my mind. They made it possible for there to be nothing on his background that would have flagged a background check and thereby allowing him to buy the gun he used to kill people. He managed to terrorize many before he started killing them and was protected from punishment. From that aspect, I’d say life in prison without a chance of parole would be okay, but they need to prosecute those that created that insane policy as accessories to murder.

@jellyjellyjelly “Lol wtf is restorative justice for a mass shooter!? Do you even hear yourself?”

I think @Jeruba phrased it better than I could so I’ll just quote her:
“I would hope instead, over time, to see recognition of the depth of the horror perpetrated and genuine remorse for it. I would also hope to see real effort toward moral regeneration.”

For me it would be the killer expressing sincere remorse and volunteering to participate in studies that might help reduce further crimes or allow law enforcement to interview them to help them learn how to identify and catch killers better etc. To be clear, they would remain incarcerated for life.

That’s not justice, nothing is restored, and moreover it’s delusional to imagine that such a thing is possible. You will sooner travel faster than the speed of light than teach a mass murderer remorse. Just like the most absolutely facile view of human behavior. Some people are irredeemable pieces of shit.

I guess another way to look at this question is to ask if you think it is more humane to imprison a person for their entire life without a chance of parole or to just kill them outright?

@jellyjellyjelly “That’s not justice, nothing is restored, and moreover it’s delusional to imagine that such a thing is possible.”

I would argue that the killer’s humanity might be restored if they were willing to contribute back to humanity in whatever ways are possible from behind bars. Furthermore, I didn’t realize you were such an expert on the subject. Do you have any data or evidence to support your claims or are you just insisting we all accept your personal ruminations on the nature for humanity as fact without any supporting evidence? I know for certain that justice systems based on restorative justice have proven to be more effective across many metrics than retributive ones. I’ve taken classes and read books on the subject.

@gorillapaws I looked it up and you’re right – of course it depends on the state, but in general, it costs around $700,000 to keep a prisoner in for life, whereas it costs a minimum of a million to execute them.

That being said, I still can’t abide the thought of a killer with no remorse enjoying life even a little. But that’s why I said there are circumstances in which I would want someone to serve a sentence, but get out with enough time to develop a new life. I believe that the worst of the worst should be executed, not just your average murderer. that sounds weird

My beliefs are based on our current justice system which is grossly flawed. In a perfect world, only the truly remorseless and guilty would be executed. Then again, in a perfect world, they wouldn’t have killed in the first place.

Lol my dude I am not talking about justice FOR THE F-ING MASS MURDERER!!!! GOOD GRIEF!!!!!

And to answer your question, some things are not knowable empirically either for practical reasons or by their very nature. No one in the whole history of human societies past or present is ever going to do a randomized trial where adequately powered samples of mass murderers are randomized to restorative justice vs. justice as usual. So I am basing this entirely on my own lifetime of experience trying to get ANY person to change their mind about ANY thing.

We live in a society where you cannot reliably convince people who believe otherwise that the earth is round. There is a negative infinity possibility you are going to cause a mass murderer to experience “sincere remorse.” Btw since you are the one advocating for the efficacy of “restorative justice” pretty sure the burden of proof is on you to show that it can be done ¯\(ツ)/¯.

I assume they’re mad because he has the chance to actually escape or be freed later on.

Otherwise it’s actually good if he suffers in jail, because god and heaven/hell isn’t real, so dying fast is an easy escape.

Since we can already assume the American justice system is a flawed circus, it’s better he be executed so he doesn’t slip through the cracks of the crappy American system.

@jellyjellyjelly ”...I am not talking about justice FOR THE F-ING MASS MURDERER!!!! GOOD GRIEF!!!!!”

You literally just said: “Lol wtf is restorative justice for a mass shooter!?”

Restorative Justice is bringing justice to the victims. It’s effective.

“The addition of restorative justice programs has enhanced victim satisfaction in a process that was, by its very nature, rather unsatisfactory. Moreover, this response to criminal behaviour has a strong impact by encouraging more offenders to take responsibility for their actions and repair some of the harm they have caused through restitution. And while the gains made in recidivism are not as strong as “appropriate correctional treatment,” restorative justice does appear to reduce recidivism for those who choose to participate. Finally, offenders in restorative justice programs report moderate increases in satisfaction compared to offenders in the traditional system.” (source)

@jellyjellyjelly “There is a negative infinity possibility you are going to cause a mass murderer to experience “sincere remorse.””

This article is from Psychology Today provides several counterexamples.

There’s another psychological phenomena called the Dunning–Kruger effect. It’s essentially when low-ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognize their own incompetence in a particular sphere of knowledge. That’s why they might make provably false statements like you just did with such gusto.

But why bother to study criminal justice, criminology, corrections, and other social sciences when you can just bloviate and assert things without evidence, am I right?

omg! LOL!Z