The Death Penalty

[Rasp]

An oldie but a goodie as political topics go. I'm on record as having supported the death penalty - but as I had arguments with others my position hardened because they made two very good points I didn't have a great counter to.

1. You can never be entirely sure someone innocent won't be executed mistakenly. This is a rare occurrence but I'm of the mind that even a single innocent person being executed when its unnecessary is unacceptable. The system cant be so perfect as to prevent that from happening.

2. A quick relatively painless dead is far to grand a mercy than one who is truly guilty deserves. Putting them out of their misery is the easy way out and I'd rather they suffer for the rest of their days eating maggot infested slop than be so kind as to grant them one. I'll be honest if you said you wanted to execute someone and there was absolutely no doubt he was guilty that really would be my only concern.

I've heard people debate the costs - each side saying the cheaper to do it there way but I couldn't care less either way. It's such a stupid argument because easiest ways to cut costs is to end Marijuana Prohibition which has proven to only help fund organized crime - which anyone who studied Alcohol Prohibition could have already told you. I'd say we could regulate and tax it too but I know many of us would point out that's only funding another type of organized crime. But I digress. XD

Still should an honorable society allow the innocent to die just they can grant a mercy to the guilty? I cant accept that.

[TGLS]

OK, first of all, why are you sticking hearts on rather grim topics? Doesn't make sense to me.

1: Retributive justice will, on occasion, punish someone who is innocent. This is one of the larger problems with retribution. The best solution for this problem, is not to use retributive justice, which has its own problems.

2: There's still the possibility that an innocent person is still going to get caught up in the mess and will be tortured for what might be the rest of their lives. I also consider the proposition that we torture criminals somewhat distasteful, though understandable.

On costs, it's still a meaningful argument, even though the war on drugs costs more. As a corollary, just because fossil fuel power plants are the largest contributor of CO2, it does not follow that we can ignore the effects of gas powered cars.

[Rasp]

OK, first of all, why are you sticking hearts on rather grim topics? Doesn't make sense to me.

Force of habit I always put a little heart on my posts because I'm just so gersh dern cute and adorable regardless of how tone deaf it comes off as.

2: There's still the possibility that an innocent person is still going to get caught up in the mess and will be tortured for what might be the rest of their lives. I also consider the proposition that we torture criminals somewhat distasteful, though understandable.

That is a fair point because as I noted system isn't perfect. it's a cost we have to weight - for me I prefer the idea we can at least free an innocent person if new evidence comes to light. I'm not saying we actively torture them either - rotting away in prison day after day for year after year knowing the cold embrace of death is your only hope of escape is more than torture enough. you're damn right its distasteful and I know I might be a heartless bitch for saying the most guilty deserve it. I can live with it better than I can live with executing innocent people. that's just me.

[Arkle]

I'm just against it, period. I'm an Atheist, so I obviously don't ascribe to the religious oppositions to it such as that of devout Catholics, but pretty much every other reason ever given for being opposed to the death penalty is one I side with if not share compeltely.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I'm willing to have my mind be changed on this topic, as I can see and agree with elements of the arguments on both sides. My tentative position is this- the death penalty is something that has been overused and abused through a lot of (U.S. and world) history, and it should never be anything other than a last resort used in the most extreme circumstance. However, I don't feel that it should be taken off the table completely. There may be those rare cases where an evil (or dangerous, however you want to frame it) person may be an active and extreme threat and burden to society, without reasonable hope or expectation for rehabilitation.

As far as the risk of innocents being killed. Well, innocents being sent to prison isn't such a hot deal either, and in some cases may be as bad/worse. Theoretically that's the point of "innocent until proven guilty" and "beyond a reasonable doubt". In any case with any ambiguity, sure I can agree. But there are also those cases where you can be as sure of a person's guilt as you can be of almost anything else.

[PerrySimm]

Well... it's rather permanent.

[SuccubusYuri]

I smoke but do not inhale with the death penalty.

I am mostly in favor of having it as a moral question of society, rather than for those it applies TO. That we, as a group, believe there are crimes so heinous, so unforgivable, that are willing to extinguish a life for it.

I'm also not in favor of using it on personal crimes, like murder. It is a penalty that should be reserved for your chemical weapons dictators, political assassins, and terrorist masterminds. Yes, the nature of having it means someone innocent MIGHT be executed, but it's far easier to botch up the murder victim's ex-boyfriends blood sample than it is the guy who was on television calling for the extermination of the six million Jews. The death penalty, at least in many American minds, is applied how PRISON is supposed to work, "This person does not fit in society, therefore must be removed." We have such a low standard of its application no wonder it is misused in such embarrassing and tragic ways. But that goes back to the whole warped view of crime in American society in general.

[KesaraRiku]

To be honest, I am not certain if I want the state to have the Death penalty- Only because humans are prone to doing things like emotional arguments, or politically motivated prosecutors, etc. The DP is very finite and there is no way to reverse an "oops". So yeah, I would rather side on the side of caution and give it a soft no.

[The Romulan Republic]

Opposed, for a couple of main reasons:

1. While I recognize that it is sometimes justifiable to use potentially lethal force defensively, to kill a prisoner in cold blood, whatever their crimes, is to me morally wrong. I don't believe the Justice system should be built on vengeance (which is largely just another way of saying "spite"), or that we have a right to decide that a person shouldn't live any more. I tend to think the goal should be to serve the interests of society as a whole, which means rehabilitation where possible and practical, and having prisoners work to serve the community in some capacity, and when that's not possible, keeping dangerous people separated from the general populace.

2. On practical grounds, its a catch-22: You risk killing an innocent person (and unlike imprisonment, a dead person cannot be brought back if it turns out mistakes were made), and the greater lengths you go to in order to mitigate that possibility (endless appeals and so on) the more expensive the death penalty becomes relative to prison. In most circumstances, any effort to bring down the cost will increase the risk of killing the innocent.

And like the OP says, ultimately, death could be seen as more merciful in some circumstances than a life in prison, if you're really into punishing criminals.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I support the death penalty in theory, but not in practice.

I think that there are some human beings who should be killed. I believe that a well-organized society has the power and right to kill certain people. I believe that due process, with judge, jury, and executioner, is morally different from individual murder.

In practice, however...it just doesn't work out. Our nation has proven time and time again that it does not have the moral maturity to carry out a death sentence fairly. Too many people go to execution with serious doubts still hanging in their cases. Too many innocents are killed because of bigotry and bias, and too many guilty people are let go because of the same biases and bigotry. Race is a much better predictor for who gets the lethal injection than other factors. The sentencing of the Charleston Church shooter gives me some hope for a properly applied death penalty, but cases like that remain the aberration rather than the norm.

If we can't play fair with the death penalty, then we shouldn't have it at all.