if our justice system was perfected would you support capital punishment?

[Mirishka]

I wholeheartedly support capitol punishment.

There was an article I read on Yahoo about a convicted sex offender trying to 'friend' one of his victims on Facebook... FROM PRISON. Really? Rape/murder someone, get put in prison so you can use the internet. Prison should be a fucking hell, there should be no privelege, no 'fun' or recreation.

Internet in prison.... that just depresses me.

[Tradewind]

If the death penalty is about getting revenge/even, how absurd is it?

Very.

/10chars

[Deadvolcanoes]

Prison should be a fucking hell, there should be no privelege, no 'fun' or recreation.

We should also poke them with sticks while they're trying to sleep, and feed them nothing but week old bread.

[Tinykong]

Very.

/10chars

So, let me get this straight. You think this is absurd:

- State has high murder rates
- State institutes death penalty because constituents want vengeance/retribution/tougher penalties

[Tradewind]

So, let me get this straight. You think this is absurd:

- State has high murder rates
- State institutes death penalty because constituents want vengeance/retribution/tougher penalties

Yes?

/morechars

[Tinykong]

Interesting read:

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?recor...63#description

[pucGG]

Anything that comes to the death penalty should instead be solitary confinement (the hole) for life. Water, bread, basic veggies for food for the rest of your life. Same meal 3 times a day, every day. That leaves a lot of time for contemplation about what you did wrong. Far more of a punishment than killing someone.

Yeah great idea, make them squeel, make them beg for a bullet to their head.

I believe in capital punishment, but extensive psychological torture is sadistical beyond all humanism.

[Puck]

No. Eye for an eye is a primitive concept.

[Tradewind]

Interesting read:

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?recor...63#description

p. 98

Finally we note that it is not even clear that executions per se are the source of salience. Is it obvious that actual executions are the main source of salience of the death penalty rather than, say, highly publicized death sentences? How do changes in the law or Supreme Court decisions affect salience? In the committee's search of relevant studies, we did not find any in which the source of salience were explored. Hence, although it is a perfectly logically coherent idea that executions make capital punishment salient and provides a deterrence effect for this reason, there is no empirical work to justify the claim.

/fuckingmorechars

[StayTuned]

Any punishment by nature is part of the vengeance machine, not just the death penalty. Our justice system is a form of controlled vengeance in order to keep people from taking out their own form of "justice". We can also say that it is proven that jail and rehabilitation does not deter crime as well by just looking at the crime rates.
I have not read on objective reason why the death penalty is wrong. What people are listing is that they find it morally wrong on some level, that they believe that jail is worst than death, or that everyone can be rehabilitated if given the chance. Objectively the death penalty is akin to putting down a rabid animal, which no one thinks twice about.

There are more than enough good objective reasons. However, this thread gives us the perfect legal system, thus eliminating a few of them.

In the normal system however, capital punishment is not justified, because poor people are more likely to be sentenced to death for example.

Whether or not someone is sentenced to death depends on many factors. One of the biggest factors is the accused person’s attorney. Poor people are often not able to afford an excellent and expensive attorney, who knows how to deal with capital punishment. Most of the time, they are stuck with public defenders, who are often specialized in fraud or minor crimes and have often very little interest in highly complicated murder crimes due to the fact that they are poorly paid.

One example for this would be the case of O. J. Simpson. Simpson, being famous and rich, had the financial ability to hire a high-profile defense team, led by Robert Shapiro and later Johnnie Cochran. The defense team was able to persuade jurors that some of the evidence provided by the LA County was faulty and not being handled correctly.
The team was specialized on defending capital punishment crimes and people who do not have the financial means to hire such a defense team are put at a high disadvantage, most likely costing them their life. Such a situation is against the principles of fair trial.

“According to a recently-released survey by the National Association of Counties, 40% percent of counties in the country with populations exceeding 100,000 face major budgetary shortfalls. All of them have been forced to trim away resources required for equal justice to prevail.”

Furthermore, in real life this issue would not be solved by saying that we only have to find a way to make all trials fair, for this cannot be achieved in any foreseeable future.

The case of O. J. Simpson shows that rich and famous people do have an advantage over poor and uneducated people in terms of their possibility of hiring high-profile attorneys, who are specialized in defending capital punishment crimes. Public defenders often lack the knowledge and ability those high-profile attorneys have, making the whole system highly unfair against poor people. Thus it can be said that capital punishment is not justified.


Another example for why capital punishment is not justified: many executed people were proven to be wrongly convicted after their execution.

For a person to be executed, we have to have enough evidence to be sure that the accused person committed the crime beyond any reasonable doubt. However, history has shown us that we cannot be always 100% sure that the accused person really committed the crime, even though the evidence is against him.

For example, in the case of Johnny Frank Garrett , Johnny has been executed in Texas for the rape and murder of an elderly nun in Amarillo on Halloween night 1981. However, in March 2004, new DNA evidence has proven that not Johnny, but Leoncio Perez Rueda was the rapist and murderer.

We can list the case of Carlos DeLuna as another case of wrongful execution. Executed on December 7, 1989, Carlos was proven innocent in 2006 after a Chicago Tribune presented a series of investigative news stories that examined evidence that DeLuna may have been convicted in error.
According to deathpenaltyinfo.org, 142 innocent people have been executed since 1971.

Death penalty is not something that can be undone and even though there are some cases in which clear DNA and/or video recording evidence shows that someone is the perpetrator, this is not the status quo for all cases and we cannot risk making the ultimate mistake of executing the wrong person.

These two cases of wrongful execution are only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more cases in which an innocent person was executed wrongfully. After looking at these cases, it is fair to say that the system of capital punishment is way too prone to mistakes and we can therefore never be 100% sure that someone has not been wrongly convicted.

[Deleted]

I would support it. If the person is responsible for murder, rape, animal or human cruelty they would be trialed (assuming it's still a perfect justice system, meaning uncorrupted judges and juries) and if found guilty put down. That would solve a lot of world problems, the state would do something better with the money rather than feeding and clothing these people. Crime rates would also drop since the tought of death would be scarier to some than being locked up. Basically this world as enough problems as it is, so why waste rescources on someone who just doesn't deserve them?

[obdigore]

I would support it. If the person is responsible for murder, rape, animal or human cruelty they would be trialed (assuming it's still a perfect justice system, meaning uncorrupted judges and juries) and if found guilty put down. That would solve a lot of world problems, the state would do something better with the money rather than feeding and clothing these people. Crime rates would also drop since the tought of death would be scarier to some than being locked up. Basically this world as enough problems as it is, so why waste rescources on someone who just doesn't deserve them?

/sigh. Fear of Death isn't a motivator as criminals don't expect to be caught. This has been discussed many times in this thread, as well as related threads, and in any kind of discussion of this sort.

[Ultimate Gohan]

Only 58 countries in the world still regularly impose the death penalty, but it is widely accepted in the United States. Public opinion polls show that between 60 and 60 percent of Americans approve the use of the death penalty in some cases. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, about 85 percent of executions occur in the south - half of them in Texas.

Amnesty International reports that 52 people were executed in the United States in 2009 - the bulk by lethal injection. In the summer of 2010, Utah put Ronnie Lee Gardner, convicted of murdering a bartender and an attorney during an escape attempt, to death by firing squad, the first time the method was used since 1996. The case reopened the debate about the use of the death penalty and whether or not some methods are inhumane.

Death penalty cases are notoriously expensive to prosecute because of the number of appeals involved. CBS "Sunday Morning" recently stated that since the advent of DNA evidence, 17 prisoners on death row had been found innocent and released.

So why do so many Americans support the death penalty ?
It is because "some people deserve to die, and the Americans have an obligation to kill them."

[Skarssen]

I support capital punishment in principle, but 2 factors make it problematic

1) the insanely long appeals process that ends up costing tax payers more money than it would to keept the piece of subhuman trash alive in prison
2) Genetic, or otherwise overwhelming evidence, that ensures the perpetrator is guilty (i.e. James Holmes)

[Dvaldin]

The death penalty perpetuates the theme that it is alright to kill someone under certain circumstances, and I'd suppose some killers could argue that it was ok to kill their victim because, as they saw it, the victim just needed a killin'. To do away with the death penalty would require a complete change of mindset, but doing away with it could be the catalyst to begin that change of mindset in society and also with would-be perpetrators.

With all the data available, it's readily evident that it does not, in fact, act as a deterrent. I'd suppose most of those convicted and sentenced to death believe or believed in the death penalty before they were convicted.

[Skarssen]

With all the data available, it's readily evident that it does not, in fact, act as a deterrent.

I don't think that is an issue for some people. My support of capital punishment isn't due to some supposed deterrent capacity. I think it is pretty clear that relying on prison sentences as a form of rehabilitation is foolish. So, what then is the point of sending rapists/child molesters/murderers to life sentences in prison? Punishing taxpayers by forcing them to keep the SOB alive for 40 years?

[Ebildays]

Whether or not someone is sentenced to death depends on many factors. One of the biggest factors is the accused person’s attorney. Poor people are often not able to afford an excellent and expensive attorney, who knows how to deal with capital punishment. Most of the time, they are stuck with public defenders, who are often specialized in fraud or minor crimes and have often very little interest in highly complicated murder crimes due to the fact that they are poorly paid.

This has nothing to do with if capital punishment is a good choice and everything to do with a part of our justice system that is failing the poor. Ending capital punishment is not going to change the fact that the rich are getting a better deal from the justice system because they have money.

The whole OJ trial is up for personal opinion. To be honest it is much like the Martin/Zimmerman trial were the belief of OJ's innocence almost falls neatly with in racial lines. Did OJ get off because he was rich or did he get off because he was innocent? There was a lot more going on with that trial than him paying for good lawyers which does not really make it a good example.

Those cases you are citing happened before DNA testing became widespread. If anything people on death row should have their cases reviewed. If there is an doubt or not enough clear evidence the sentences should be changed to life in prison without taking in account of time served depending on the case.

The only issue I have with capital punishment is that not every person that murders someone needs it. It is a waste of time and money to go after every murder but there are cases where it would be worth the added time and money. Trying to give Casey Anthony the death penlty was foolish but to ask for it for James Holmes is not. I would say that may be 90%, if not more, of people that received capital punishment would have been better off with life sentences. Capital punishment as the last form of punishment we can give someone and it should not be taken lightly.

[Roose]

I am likely one of the few liberals that has no real problems with the death penalty outside of the obvious doubts of guilt. Remove all doubts of guilt and I have no issues with the people asking for death for certain crimes. Deterrent or not, I think that it can be the right justice in some cases.

[Garnier Fructis]

I would support it if rehabilitation was tried first and failed, or if the particular person was not able to be rehabilitated (some psychological disorders). "But it's not his fault he can't change!" I don't care. Go find another bleeding heart to complain to. I don't believe that human life is any more sacred or whatever compared to say, chimpanzees or amoeba. I would also have to see what crimes lead to the death penalty specifically before I could fully get on board.

The only reasons I don't support the death penalty in practice is because we do occasionally convict innocent people, and that sometimes I don't think the crime warrants death.

[Duffie]

We need death match arenas, if we are going to kill them for their crimes at least give us a form of entertainment.