Death Row!

Another thread got me thinking about this, and I wondered what your thoughts were on it.

Here in the UK up until 1998 the only crime you could (but never would have) received a death sentence for was treason, then in 1998 that crime was reduced in severity therefore totally abolishing the death sentence in the UK.

However I am all to aware that it does still exist in some states in the US and is carried out!

Do you agree with an eye for an eye (as it were), do you think it's right that people are put to death?

Do you disagree with it...why?

I personally don't agree with it, for

1) I don't think anyone has the right to take another persons life.

2) if that person has committed a heinous crime,, why would you want to cut there life short, surely suffering the hardships of prison is better punishment.

Discuss away :)

edit to add: I am not talking about euthanasia regarding illness that's another topic.

I don't agree with the death penalty either.  I don't think it's at all effective at preventing crime and I think it reflects very badly on society in the way that 'two wrongs don't make a right'.   Plus, we make terrible mistakes.  Juries aren't infallible.  The 'Birmingham Six' would have been executed all those years earlier, making their subsequent exoneration rather pointless.   Sally Clark's wrongful conviction for murder tragically proved to be fatal anyway.   And when I hear that many of the people kept on Death Row in the USA are suffering from mental illnesses, I wonder what's really being acheived beyond some kind of savage form of revenge.

Original Post by andie-joe:

2) if that person has committed a heinous crime,, why would you want to cut there life short, surely suffering the hardships of prison is better punishment.

A long time ago in another forum I made that same argument, but someone pointed out the huge cost it is to keep people in prison.

I am not sure how I feel about it. I don't think I would have a problem if it were a serial killer, especially someone who's been doing particularly heinous things to their victims. One time murder is different though. Often it's an act of rage, love even (a friend of mine's father recently got out of prison for killing his cheating wife)...and they probably aren't going to harm other people (though there is a worry another situation like that could happen). Then there's also many cases where they have the wrong person...

I was completely 100% for the death penalty in all cases of rape and/or murder until I saw Dead Man Walking (susan sarandon/ sean penn movie). After that, it made me sick and everything I hear about lethal injection or the cost to the taxpayers of the long appeal system or the racism inherent in death penalty rulings or the fact that people have posthumously been proven innocent just solidifies my conviction.

Yeah, I think life in jail sucks. Death is too easy, it allows people to avoid feeling guilty about what theyve done. Plus I dont want my dax dollars wasted on astronomical legal fees. Its so much cheaper to just feed the person for the rest of their miserable life.

#2, I can see the argument about the costs, but the way I look at it is the prisons are already there, and we are therefore already paying for them, they are always full, so I don't feel that the costs has any real foundations. I would rather pay for them to be kept there, and perhaps get the help they need.

I know some won't see it that way but to enforce #1 &#3 what if they are innocent, it's too late once they are gone.

An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

In most states in the U.S. an inmate on death row costs more than a general population inmate.  No one is saving money by killing prisoners.  I don't see how killing someone is punishment.  What do they care they're dead, ya know.  I'm sure it would be sucky-er to have to live out your life in prison. 

I too do not think anyone (including the Gub'ment) has the right to take someone's life.

Azirra, you should watch The Life of David Gale.  Great flick.

I tend to believe that humans, or at least generally similar sentient beings, should not condone the destruction of our fellow species. However, I have never been moved to protect the life of another person who goes out of his way to hurt me or anyone else.

An eye for and eye (or more for an eye) is my perspective. Some people are far too dangerous or psychotic to let roam around. In which case, the price of keeping inmates fed, dressed, housed, and everything else is a price we don't need to be paying.

I also believe that criminal punishment should be left to the discretion of the victim. In the case of a murder (and I am not including accidents in the same category as murder) the criminal should receive the death sentence as well. 

I see you're from Texas, psychorache. If I remember correctly, your state has the highest number of death row executions. I'll just assume that's why you're pro-death penalty. That and you're still in high school. I think you'd be surprised of the costs of putting someone on death row... since that's what you're basing your opinion on.

Not only in Texas, but like me also just outside Dallas county which has the country's largest number of convictions overturned by DNA evidence. 

Oddly enough the thread that made me think about this had a link to the TX death list, and it really took me back that there was one lad that I noticed (stopped reading it after) who was executed at 18yrs old! that is just wrong.

psychorache, you say an eye for an eye and the punishment should fit the crime, does this then mean that you would want things to go back to the days when a thief would have his hands chopped off and so forth. I'm sure there are still places in the world where that happens?

But I would hope that we have advanced enough that we would never return to such severity.

alibsam - just cause someone hails from a certain region, doesn't mean they are merely going along with the pack. Also, because they disagree with you doesn't mean that it's an immature decision. Kinda weird, that you have to try to cut someone down in that manner because you have fundamental differences.

I happen to agree with psychorache and we're probably different in many ways. We don't have the death penalty in Michigan, but I do hail from the hometown of Dr. Death (Dr. Jack Kevorkian, not that I'm proud of that, he's nuts in many ways)

If you murdered my daughter, I wouldnt want you spending your days in jail.
I'd want you executed.
Dead.
Gone.
I'd be wrong though.
Murder is murder. 
"Capital Punishment" is just the politically correct term.

psycho, that is one scary premise - forget justice of equal crime, equal punishment (if only THAT were true!) and lets outright allow the consequences to be determined by the one most likely to be unjust and vengeful.

Besides, leaving it up to the victim to decide is just the opposite of your prior belief an eye for an eye.

Original Post by trendstudent:

alibsam - just cause someone hails from a certain region, doesn't mean they are merely going along with the pack. Also, because they disagree with you doesn't mean that it's an immature decision. Kinda weird, that you have to try to cut someone down in that manner because you have fundamental differences.

 

If you're from a state that promotes it you're more likely to agree with it. Group mentality runs rampant. My thinking she is immature has nothing to do with her disagreeing with me. She said it's expensive to keep someone in prison but it's even more-so to keep them on death row so by using cost as a reason and it being invalid, I pointed it out. It's not a matter of cutting someone down either... you're reading an "attitude" into my comment when it wasn't intended to be there.

Sun123-  I believe that I stated my belief as "An eye for an eye or more for an eye." It's dependent on your decisions as a victim.

Maybe I don't feel compassion for the depraved sociopath who tries to kill me or someone I know.

My roommate in university was a criminal justice major. She read this book about capital punishment in the US... I don't remember if it was this one or this one. I'm 90% sure it was the latter. I skimmed some of it and it really is a good read for this subject. 

i think death sentences usually end up costing more than life sentences because of the unlimited appeals.

but that's not why i'm against the death penalty.  for me it's just about the fallibility (not to mention corruption) of the justice system.  yes, there are all the convictions that have been overturned by new evidence, particularly DNA.  but DNA is just the current gold standard.  there are and will be new technologies coming along all the time.

and the death penalty (not to mention the western judicial system in general) isn't an effective deterrent. 

as for victims, i think the idea that their healing is related to the degree of punishment meted out is flawed and dangerous.  healing and "closure" (i hate that term) have to be separated from punishment.

Search Google. From many reliable sources, you'll find that the death penalty costs more for taxpayers than does life in prison. 

Disregarding the financial implications, I'm 100% against the death penalty. Yes, the crimes most of the people on death row commit are repulsive and heartless beyond belief. But I see the death penalty as a type of revenge. In my opinion, revenge solves absolutely NOTHING. Nor does the death penalty. It's a way of forgetting those crimes and sweeping them under the rug as opposed to making those people think about what they've done for the rest of their lives.

Just my two cents.

If they kill, then they should be killed. How much more room is there in our jails? I mean, not much.

early intervention with families living in poverty and comprehensive literacy programs would do a lot more to lessen crime (and prison population) than the death penalty ever has.

I ask myself one thing....

Could I pull the switch?

Could I put the noose around someones neck, drop the trapdoor?

No.

The system IS fallible, and so am I.

*note - the argument that if I was the parent of a murder victim I would be more willing to execute does not hold water as I think in that situation I would be unable to be rational and the last person who needs blood on their hands.

~k