You're the member of a Jury deliberating the Death Penalty or Lifetime behind bars...

[Gatsby]

Just checking, after reading the first few pages with all the people who would be eager to pull a trigger on a convicted murderer it seemed pointless to sort through the rest.

[eriseis]

I have a name :<<<<<<

To be fair it's been a lot more than just me and Alenarien for 48 pages, if anything this has been going on for barely 2 pages. Although the discussion has become rather pointless now, just seems to be a few of us repeating 'It's not cheaper to kill' and how often can you do that before getting sick of it :P

It was a term of endearment. C'mon, Gaga is more endearing than Shadowmelded :P

[Zmaniac17]

I guess I can't post links until I have more posts so if you want to see the video look up "Bryan Stevenson We need to talk about Injustice". It's very informative.

In reality nothing is ever 100%. 1 out of 9 people on death row are found to be innocent. That is a scary number. Watch this video you'll learn a lot. If you want to skip his back story skip to about 7 minutes in. I think the most important point he made in this talk was that it's more important for us to ask ourselves whether we as a society deserve to kill then it is to ask whether someone deserves to be killed for things they've done. He brings up the great point that Germany has no death penalty. What would people think of Germany executing people? Especially if they were disproportionately Jewish. While not all of you may be from the United States, we have a history of racism and a disproportionate amount of people on death row are African american in southern states.

I think we're not asking ourselves the hard question here. Most people posting here probably believe they will never be in jail or never be wrongfully accused or unable to afford a good lawyer. Many answered by saying yes they would vote for the death penalty and would enjoy carrying it out. Take a hard look at yourself because you are exhibiting the same psychopathic tendencies as the person you are trying to punish.

[Iosif]

They still have to pay to kill him, which costs considerably more. If money is the main argument for you then you should be anti death penalty. Also despite what you might think, prison isn't exactly a funhouse.

Cite your sources, sure death penalty has a inhered cost but continuing incarceration for the full lifetime of an inmate has be considerably more. On both amnestyusa.org and deathpenaltyinfo.org they cite the cost of the cases that include the cost of execution but not the cost of long term incarceration. After reading the 2008 "California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice", the 2008 "Urban Institute, The Cost of the Death Penalty in Maryland" and the the primary sources for many of the arguments that the Cases where the death penalty was sought after.

In the state of California in 2008 it cost around $47,000 a year/inmate not taking in to the account for new construction to bring new facilities on line, from 2000 to 2008 the cost of incarceration went up by ~$2400.00 a year. The cost of long term incarceration for your average life-without-parole inmate is 30-60 years / 1.483mil-2.96mil not adjusting for inflation.

Interestingly enough in the Kansas State report they claim the mean cost of incarceration was only 720k, with an average time server of 20years based on the average life expectancy of inmates in Kansas. The California report claims that there is not extra cost associated with long term incarceration so you cannot attribute any incarceration costs to life-without-parole sentences. Yet the California Corrections budget factors for average cost of inmate based on security, health care, operation, administration, inmate support and rehabilitation.

Sure the CASE it self cost more, mainly because the court system want to make sure the case was handled properly, the number of challenges from outside sources, the large number of appeals. But that leads to the why do capitol punishment cases get handled better, a life-without-parole sentence is still a "death sentence" just it takes longer and the person is forced to endure.

My argument would not be to do away with the death penalty because it cost more but why aren't all cases tried to such a high standard weather the person is going to prison for 1 year or 100 years (life).

[Uriel]

@ OP why should i pull the switch. I dont know? Correct me if i am wrong but isnt the Judge supposed to do the judgement?
Are you refering to a american jury formed of several random people who decide if guilty or not? why should any of those random people do it?

[McSpriest]

Has anyone mentioned in the last 48 pages that (in the US) the jury does not "decide" the death penalty but simply votes on whether to recommend it to the judge who has the ultimate say over sentencing?

I'm not sure where everyone's obsession with jurors comes from, but a better improbable thought experiment would be a judge who sentences a person to die having to carry out the execution.

That was just bothering me.

many times, didn't seem to stop them