Capital Punishment: Yay or Nay

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Theweapon52 · Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:46 pm

Well what do you guys think about capital punishment?

Just wanted to see what everybody's opinion is on the subject. After being in my criminology and justice studies classes it comes up fairly often in discussions.

If your for capital punishment please don't use the saying "an eye for an eye" without actually knowing where that saying comes from.

Im against it. All data that i have come across while doing research shows that the death penalty does not serve as a deterrent for major violent crimes such as first and second degree murder. I also believe that revenge only supports the usage of death to solve our problems.

Furthermore, in canada 45 individuals over the last 50 years have been wrongly convicted of crimes and spent 25 years in prison. I don't know the statistics of wrongly imprisoned individuals in other countries but i can't imagine even killing one person because a jury was swung by a savvy lawyer.

Thoughts?

Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:34 pm

I have mixed feelings about it, but mostly I am opposed.

BuzZz · #3 Unread post by **BuzZz** » Fri Dec 11, 2009 10:56 pm

I am not opposed to the death penalty on any moral grounds, just the aforementioned wrongfully convicted screw-ups imposed by any Govern-mental justice system (made 10X worse by the involvement of lawyers... just like everything involving lawyers

)

So here's a little bit of a different opinion for ya...

I think that there should be public executions for certain White Collar crimes. Specifically, those where some banker/stockbroker/other conman makes off with millions/billions of people's money that they legally invested in legal venues. You know, like when some broker makes off with millions and leaves dozens of families and old people with nothing, especially retirees.... leaving some poor 70 year old woman with nothing to live on and no place to live, it would be kinder to murder her.

This type of criminal doesn't need to be alive. It is an insult to those they have left with nothing that these people are fed and housed in prison. More than their victims can expect..... Maybe if the fact that this type of crime could lead to death would at least give them pause before they set out F-over innocent folks.

This sort of crime is also much easier to prove conclusively with all the paper trails and bank accounts and such than murder is. That removes any doubts about wrongfully convicted errors I might have about the death penalty.

Think we could get any lawyers to participate in such trials? I suspect there would be too many of them looking over their shoulders to be available.......

#4 Unread post by **dr_bar** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 12:41 am

I kinda like the idea of public flogging for cases like that BuzZz, it is actually a proven deterrent, and it seems to me that you and I both would like a chance to get a few kicks in at someone like that...

As far as Capital Punishment, I too am against it, and would like to believe that I could hold that moral high ground even if I was confronted with a heinous crime against a close friend or family member... (Don't know that I could though.)

jstark47 · #5 Unread post by **jstark47** » Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:08 am

I am mostly opposed to it.

Then, every so often, a crime so breathtakingly heinous comes along that I think death is the only fitting punishment. Case in point: Ambrose Harris' murder of Kristin Huggins, Trenton NJ, 1992. (You can look it up.) Ambrose Harris is a vicious piece of filth, a waste of oxygen. Several years after being imprisoned, he stomped (yes, stomped) another death row inmate to death.

Him, I would gladly pull the trigger on. Wouldn't give it a second thought.

Tennif Shoe · Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:33 am

not only do i agree with the death penalty, i think they should accelrate the time frame for it, lets say from conviction to death in one year

#7 Unread post by **pchast** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 8:54 am

Capital Punishment and the system. both tough questions we will never satisfactorily answer for everyone. I worked in the prisons for a US state. I never met a criminal who didn't think they wouldn't get caught. it will never be a deterrent.

Yes I think its necessary. There are a bunch that will never care to reform and don't believe that they were wrong. Expedience, Society has no real need to continue paying hundreds of thousands for their continued existence.

A Year no! Appeals are what make the process good and eliminate most 'mistakes'. We will never become divine or 100% flawless. What constitutes acceptable risk? I don't want to judge that. Where do we draw the line?

Pete

Gummiente · #8 Unread post by **Gummiente** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 9:37 am

I believe in capital punishment. If someone is low enough to take another person's life, then they do not deserve to continue living theirs. As for wrongful convictions, crime scene technology has advanced in leaps and bounds from what it was even as little as ten years ago. If the proof is irrefutable and not circumstantial, then I say an eye for an eye.

If you can't play by the rules of civilised society like the rest of us, then you should not be allowed to play - period.

HYPERR · #9 Unread post by **HYPERR** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 11:17 am

Gummiente wrote: As for wrongful convictions, crime scene technology has advanced in leaps and bounds from what it was even as little as ten years ago. If the proof is irrefutable and not circumstantial, then I say an eye for an eye.

The wrongful conviction is the only concern for me. I'm sure throughout history, many innocent people have been wrongly convicted and even executed.

That being said, in full agreement with you that if the proof is irrefutable(as in a smoking gun or DNA evidence), yep they should pay the ultimate price.

#10 Unread post by **sv-wolf** » Sun Dec 13, 2009 1:24 pm

I agree, deterrence doesn't work, and even if it did, it's a crass idea. If your argument for killing someone is that their death would deter someone else from committing a crime, then you are simply admitting you are using them for other ends. That is unquestionably murder of the most cold-blooded kind and is certainly not ‘civilised’.

As for their ‘deserving’ to die; I have no idea what that means or who would be in a position to adjudicate on the matter. If you say someone deserves to die for something and I said no-one deserves to die and we both give our reasons, there is no rational or obvious way of deciding who is right. It would just come down to a power issue or how strongly we felt about it. Arguments about ‘deserving’ are really just a mask for motives of revenge. And revenge definitely isn't 'civilised'.

In the end killing someone won’t change the fact that they have killed. And when you have killed them you have become a killer, too.

I'd be very unhappy if the death penalty were reintroduced here in the UK.