The death penalty

[Lost_Soul]

Hi,

Today, at 6:00 PM Mark Schwab is to be executed in Florida, and people will turn up around the prison in protest against the execution.

My question to you is: Do you support the death penalty, or should we perhaps commute all death sentences to life imprisonment ? What is your take on the death penalty as a means of crime prevention? Does it curb violence, or stir it up instead? Are we to take a life for a life ?

[Sipa2008]

Hello Alex, I don't think death penalty persuade people from committing a crime but i strongly believe that people in power should work in causes and not effects.

[Inga]

Hi,
I can give you the opinion of one of my students (a young girl, third-year student). She said that a government of a country has no money to keep all the criminals who were sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death penalty (capital punishment).
By the way, have you seen 'The Green Mile'? So I can't agree with my student's opinion. This is the same question (for me) if we can make friends with people who have AIDS, or if you can marry somebody with different religious beliefs, or different nationality - such questions themselves are unfair. How can we (or somebody) decide if a person has the right to live or not? Presuming that all people are born equal.
But if you are preparing for writing a composition on this topic, you'd better take some books or texts which contain tolerant and objective opinions.
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I am an incurable optimist.

[Inga]

And I've just read the story about Mark Schwab. I think such people (people?) should be kept in prison all their lives in appalling conditions. Because death penalty is too mild for them.
_________________
I am an incurable optimist.

[NinaZara]

Beyond reasonable doubt, yes. If there is even a tiny doubt that this fellow is innocent, then I think life imprisonment is an option, and maybe I can understand this group of people who are protesting. But for a crime like this, I don't think I care for this mumbo jumbo.

In Malaysia, we don't have the jury system, so everything is really up to the one judge, so in cases as severe as this, the death penalty is carried BEYOND reasonable doubt. In many cases if there is even a single doubt, eventhough every evidence points out that the defendant is guilty, the judge rather not rule it. And usually it take years to carry it, because the person can appeal to the Agung (sort of King of kings in Malaysia).

Oh yes, I hope my government is not watching this forum, if it doesn't involve a high profile case, that involves politicians, our judges are okay.

[Juanf.sanchez]

No dought!!!! some crime deserve it, sorry!!!!

[Sipa2008]

Hi all, I meant that capital punishment doesn't prevent people form committing a crime since it depends on person's values, familiy background in fact it is a complicated issue but I strongly believe that prevention would help to reduce crime ratebecauser killing the criminal does not solve the problems of either society or the criminal. By the way, I saw"The Green MILE" it was a great movie because it describes clearly the situation of a black, poor an illetararte man who is only judged for his own condition.

[Prezbucky]

I'm against the death penalty for these reasons:

1) From time to time, innocent people are killed by their government -- it's rare, but there have been errors. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" doesn't mean much when there are 12 angry men in the jury room. "Lynch him! Lynch him! Lynch him!" doesn't instill confidence in the impartialness of a jury.

2) The death penalty does not deter others from committing heinous crimes:

a) States with the death penalty have higher murder rates than those without it. While this doesn't necessarily mean that the death penalty causes higher murder rates, it certainly isn't a vote of confidence that the DP lowers serious crime.

b) People who commit murder are either nutjob sociopaths who view the world as their playground and themselves as uncatchable gods of murder and/or mayhem, OR murder is a crime of passion. The sociopath thinks he cannot be caught, while the one who kills in a fit of rage isn't thinking about much of anything but getting the person he's after. If someone is drunk, is on drugs or has a seizure while driving (for instance) and runs over 20 people, he certainly wasn't worried about the DP at the time of the accident.

3) Under our current appeals process, it costs more to execute someone than to imprison him until he is dead.

4) We try to tell people that it's not cool to commit murder, so I find it hypocritical for a government to do it: "Do as I say, not as I do."

It seems to me that the only argument for the DP is vengeance, and vengeance is a pretty crappy reason to authorize governments to kill their citizens. Another argument would be this: you kill the murderer, you take away his ability to commit further murders. To that I say this: keeping him in prison is just as effective. Heck, while in prison he might take out a few more criminals, thereby doing us a service.

I think that if we really want to punish someone, we should put him in a 27-cubic-foot cell and feed him roadkill entrails and maggots. You put a picture of that on TV and it might deter small-time criminals at least.

I just think that the people who commit murder are more or less immune from thinking they'll be caught (fearing the consequences)... or of any rational thought, period.

If the ACLU shows up to protest the 27-cubic-foot-cell punishment, we can throw them into the cell with the criminal. hehe
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[Prezbucky]

I'm more amenable to the thought of executing someone like Saddam Hussein because of the threat of a planned (forceful) escape. We didn't want him getting out, he had a lot of friends with guns, so the only way to reasonably guarantee that he could never again ravage Iraq was to end his life.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Jamie (K)]

[Jamie (K)]

My emotions are for the death penalty, but my ethics are against it.

My emotions say that I want the person punished, so often I want the murderer killed. My emotions also make me feel that killing a murderer is the only way to protect society from him, because from time to time in the US you get a crazy, deluded governor (usually a Democrat) who decides it would be "compassionate" to let dangerous felons out on vacation from time to time. (They usually argue that these vacations from prison will help in their reintegration into society.) Or some murderers get out of prison on parole in 10 or 15 years. In either case, many of them murder again. Execution is the only way to ensure that the murderer will never escape.

Also, although the nostrum in the US is that execution doesn't reduce the murder rate, I have read lately that newer statistics show that it DOES deter many criminals who are capable of reason.

I reject all the economic arguments for capital punishment, just as I reject all the economic arguments for abortion.

However, my ethical side knows this:

1. Often they catch the wrong guy. MANY prisoners convicted of murder and other felonies are innocent. We know this since the advent of DNA evidence. Since it has become possible to use DNA to prove a person's guilt or innocence, more than 200 prisoners have been exonerated in the US -- and those are just the ones that the legal organizations have had time and money to defend in court.

2. It is possible for a murderer to convert and become a good and even a holy person. This does not happen often, but it has nonetheless happened countless times in the history of humanity. Such a converted murderer should never be released from prison, but he can do a great deal of good among his fellow prisoners and can even change the minds of younger prisoners who may end up back in society one day.

However, leaving murderers alive has its problems also. In the US, it's been seen a number of times that a prisoner clearly guilty of murder need only put on a funny hat, change his name to something exotic like Abu Jamal al-Khadda, start publishing poems, and suddenly have a worldwide movement claiming he's innocent and protesting in the streets of New York and even Paris for his release.

[Lost_Soul]