The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Death Penalty
Ryadic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Let me preface this by saying that I'm new to this forum, I usually hang in the G&T and the CF forums, but I love to debate and there are some good topics here, so I decided to make my own.
Chances are this one has been done, and if it has no place here again, please delete it and accept my apologies, but due to recent events that have happened and a debate that happened in my online college course, and with a few of my friends, I thought it would be a good one to bring here.
So this is the reason for our debate. The woman that was murdered was a co-worker of mine. In fact before she switched departments, we sat right next to each other. We still worked in the same building until I switched departments and moved to a different building (our company has about 10 different buildings spread out all over Chattanooga and then a few in other cities in TN). Suffice it to say I was shocked. I'm 23 years old and up til I found that out, I never knew someone who has been murdered, nor have I ever known a murderer. Now I know both. I met her husband a few times when our department had gatherings outside of work. But something like this can really change the way you view your everyday life. It's shocking really.
But on to the topic of debate. When I discussed this with my friends to see if they heard it on the news, they were shocked that I knew the woman. So we got onto the topic of whether or not the husband should be put to death. I say no. I've always been against the death penalty because it is the easy way out for the murderer. And that is very apparent in this case. He tried to commit suicide, and failed. He realized what he had done and couldn't live with himself. That or he didn't want to face justice for his crime. In any case, death is what this guy wants, and should he get it?
One of my friends says he wants the death penalty. He states that he should be killed and brought before God to be judged immedediately for his actions.
So what's your view before reading this story and my opinion, and why?
After reading this story and my opinion on it, does you view change for this particular case or overall?
Chances are this one has been done, and if it has no place here again, please delete it and accept my apologies, but due to recent events that have happened and a debate that happened in my online college course, and with a few of my friends, I thought it would be a good one to bring here.
So this is the reason for our debate. The woman that was murdered was a co-worker of mine. In fact before she switched departments, we sat right next to each other. We still worked in the same building until I switched departments and moved to a different building (our company has about 10 different buildings spread out all over Chattanooga and then a few in other cities in TN). Suffice it to say I was shocked. I'm 23 years old and up til I found that out, I never knew someone who has been murdered, nor have I ever known a murderer. Now I know both. I met her husband a few times when our department had gatherings outside of work. But something like this can really change the way you view your everyday life. It's shocking really.
But on to the topic of debate. When I discussed this with my friends to see if they heard it on the news, they were shocked that I knew the woman. So we got onto the topic of whether or not the husband should be put to death. I say no. I've always been against the death penalty because it is the easy way out for the murderer. And that is very apparent in this case. He tried to commit suicide, and failed. He realized what he had done and couldn't live with himself. That or he didn't want to face justice for his crime. In any case, death is what this guy wants, and should he get it?
One of my friends says he wants the death penalty. He states that he should be killed and brought before God to be judged immedediately for his actions.
So what's your view before reading this story and my opinion, and why?
After reading this story and my opinion on it, does you view change for this particular case or overall?
Ryadic on
0
Posts
It's cruel and unusual punishment, again especially when you're dealing with someone not fully able to appreciate their actions.
It's an incredible and dangerous exercise of the state's power - seriously, for an otherwise pretty libertarian country, the U.S. seems far too comfortable letting its government kill folks. Also can have some pretty negative effects on how people regard human life - "hey, if the state can kill that guy it doesn't like, why can't I?"
Removes all chance for review should there be a mistake.
For me, this trumps all other potential arguments.
I used to be a big proponent, btw.
Of course my favorite reason of them all is the issue cost. It costs a fuck ton more in this country to execute someone than it does to keep them inprisoned for life. Everything else considered, this is the biggest factor working against keeping the death penalty, in my book.
By the way, I'm not terribly opposed to the death penalty for international crimes - genocide, war crimes, etc. Basically I don't see that class of criminals failing to meet the criteria I set out above - they can be deterred to a degree (ending up at the end of a noose is quite a fall from grace . . . pun intended) and it doesn't have the whole icky "state kills citizen" vibe (they are the state . . . thing Louis XVI). But the ICC has strictly sworn it off, so it doesn't really matter unless we're talking about a domestic prosecution.
Condemning the innocent, wasting tax money, and having no real benefit for the community, all in one? Hell no.
And I'm also against the death penalty for the reasons A_J mentioned.
You really ARE a terrible conservative.
That said, pretty much my policy on it. I have no issue with the Death Penalty in Theory, but in practice it's rarely possible to adamantly pin down a crime on someone without any doubt, and there's no going back with new evidence when they're dead.
But there's an even better argument against the death penalty as applied by the United States. To understand how this argument works, you have to understand the death penalty process. Death penalty cases are separated into two phases: the guilt phase and the penalty phase. The guilt phase is the kind of stuff you see dramatized on Law and Order - did he do it ("was he crazy?" fits in here, too)? Then, after that, the trial enters the penalty phase. This is where things get ugly.
In the penalty phase, the jury is presented with "aggravating circumstances" and "mitigating circumstances". "Aggravating circumstances" are specifically set out by the death penalty statute in the state, and include stuff like poisoning, the fact that the victim was a police officer, or whatever other particularly heinous stuff the state legislature thought should mean a higher likelihood of a sentence of death. "Mitigating circumstances" are unlimited by the statute and include a troubled childhood or whatever else might tend to suggest that the defendant isn't entirely at fault, or a particularly bad or irredeemable person. The jury then weighs these circumstances and decides whether or not to apply the death penalty.
In the late 1980s, some researcher did a linear regression analysis of all the "aggravating" and "mitigating" circumstances, along with a number of other potential factors, to see which resulted in the highest likelihood of applying the death penalty. Turns out, the best indicator of whether the death penalty would be applied or not was the race of the victim. Let me bold this for you and put it into a separate paragraph.
The best indicator of whether the death penalty would be applied was if the victim was white.
That had more to do with it than any of the "aggravating" factors, including killing a police officer. So, it's pretty clear that the death penalty is, essentially, a fundamentally racist institution. If you kill a black person, you're highly unlikely to get the death penalty. Is that "justice"? Surely not.
As for the death penalty, I am not in favor of it because, while the punishment is final, it is not punishment(In that it does not make you regret and want to change your actions) There is also the HUGE issue of not always getting the right guy. Here in NC we had Alan Gell, spent a couple of years on death row and then it was proved he was in jail when the murder was commited. At the other end, we have the two dudes that (may) have murdered the UNC student president. One of them (Who is only 17) is also wanted for another murder. If that guy did what it looks like he did, there is zero reason to keep him around. The world would be a better place without him. Maybe we can set up an island for these guys and let them duke it out(John Carpenters Lord of the Flies)
Another thing I don't understand is 1st and 2nd degree murder. Would you rather have a guy that got so upset with one person that they carefully planned and executed their murder on the loose or the guy that shot someone in the face because they stepped on their new kicks or talked to their girl?
Under all reasonable circumstances, it is wrong for a person to kill a trapped and defenseless human. If a government derives its powers from the people, it follows that it must not kill prisoners.
This is a pretty powerful argument. If there are "certain circumstances" where killiing someone is ok what about "torture"? Surely a violent killer who tortured his victims is getting off easy with a quick death. Where is the justice there?
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Do we have to have a conversation about the differences between causation and correlation?
And here we have an example of why the church needs to get a good translator to re-do the whole old testament, because it actually says not to murder.
Can you think of any other exclamation? I mean, do white people just attract really unsympathetic killers?
I also remember watching the history channel and seeing a history of gangs, one of the leaders of the Bloods I think acctually ordered executions of other prisoners and people on the outside, and because NY had no death penalty, he just continued to serve time in Sing Sing. Might have been the Kings too, I forget.
Actually, here's the neat thing: I didn't argue causation. Notice the third-to-last sentence of what you quoted:
That's not a statement that implies causation. Instead, the only claim made there is that the observed correlation between the race of victims and the application of the death penalty will continue.
The cause of this phenomenon might be that criminals who kill black victims somehow receive better legal representation. It might be that juries don't value the lives of black people. It might be that prosecutors don't work as hard to get the death penalty for defendants who kill black people. It might be any number of things. Who knows, really? I certainly don't.
But no matter how you look at it, there is some systemic effect which is differentiating between cases on the basis of the race of the victim. Something is causing the death penalty to be much more likely in cases involving white victims, and, I would argue, that particular something is specifically endogenous to the death penalty process. As a result, we should condemn the whole thing. Is that really so hard to understand?
Oh yeah, forgot to mention that today he was evaluated and was determined to be mentally stable. The article may be fabricating a few things. I'm still not entirely clear on all the details, but that is one thing that was discovered.
If there was an advantage to society as a whole or in part to executing a prisoner, would you be for it?
If, for example, a method of execution was devised that did not do irreparable damage to the organs (meaning they'd be available for transplant). Would it change your opinion on capital punishment?
Expanding on the idea, now that there is a clear and tangible benefit to execution (beyond removing a criminal element from society) would you be in favor of expanding the definition of a capital crime?
Don't want to drag it off on a tangent though.
I have one major problem with the death penalty. If it could be resolved I'd volunteer to be the one to throw the switch.
Basically, it's the probability of executing an innocent person. Our legal system sucks (unless you're rich) and too many innocent people fall through the cracks and land in cells. If there was a way to be 100% certain that you had the guilty party it'd be one thing. But short of a confession (and sometimes not even then) there's no way to be certain.
I think cruel and unusual punishment is to resuscitate a person who wanted to kill themselves, only for the purpose of subjecting them to a punishment that many agree (the punished person obviously included) is worse than the "easy way out" of death. Sounds an aweful lot more like torture to me.
I don't understand how someone can say the death penalty is "cruel and unusual" and then in the same post state that it is "the easy way out" compared to a lifetime sentence of violence and rape.
I also think it misses the point that laws for the most part are there to protect society. If someone is given the death penalty, they are removed from society. If someone is given life in prison, they are removed from society.
This is a ridiculous argument because according to that logic, nothing could possibly be a deterrant to someone committing a "crime of passion" or someone "not fully aware of their actions." Yeah, deterrants are not meant to deter those two cases because by definition they cannot. Instead they are meant to deter people who are aware of their actions and the possible repercussions. And in this respect, I would argue that the death penalty works very well.
I honestly don't know if I support the death penalty or not. I am almost "agnostic" in this issue in that I don't think I have all the answers, and I honestly don't know if any human can have enough of the answers to decide if it's ever right to take someone else's life or not. However, I see so many of the arguments of those against the death penalty to be hypocritical.
It was about the last days of a convict on death row(black of course) and the event leading up to his execution. It took place into the south and they where inteviewing the warden of the prison. (guy looked like a real good ol' boy, with cowboy hat and a pickup truck).
The inteviewer raised the standard objections to the death penalty; that its a cruel punishment, that the convict was a black man tried in front of a white jury and how the appeals prosess was crocked. That the death penalty was an invalid form of punishment as long as you could not guarante that an inocent man could not be excecuted.
The wardens reply went a little something like this: Those are all good arguments against how the death penalty was carried out, NOT against the death penalty itself. One could chose a method of execution that was humane, select juries with a balance racial mix, straighten out the appeals prosess and every argument would fall by the wayside.
The death penalty was never meant to apply to all prisoners and to all crimes. It was meant for unusal crimes comitted by unusal criminals. The death penalty was a valid form of punishment as long as you where able to find one case where you considered it to be the only fitting punishment. To be truly against the death penalty you would have to oppose it all the time in every case, because if you made just ONE exeption your where not really against it, just arguing about the current system.
I didn't write it as well as he said it, but it echoes my thoughts on the death penalty. I can think of several people that should have recived the death penalty(Hitler, Stalin, Mao to name the first few on my list) so I can't really say I'm against it. I do however oppose the way it is practiced in many countries(Saudi Arabia, Iran and the US), but I can't pretend that I do not consider it a valid form of punishment.
Nobody thinks they'll get caught.
Our justice system is designed to resuscitate criminals.
But in all serious, maybe we won't have a choice but to bring back the death penalty across the United States. If I'm not mistaken, we have one of the highest amount of jailed persons in the world. In fact, we're running out of space. Some states, such as California, is making makeshift prisons out of warehouses, where prisoners are tightly packed together.
Can't we just send them to Australia. We could market it to the Australians as "the real aboriginal experience."
INCONCEIVABLE!
There are several jobs I expect my government to perform. "Executioner" is not one of them.
Under all reasonable circumstances, it is wrong to render a person trapped and defenseless. That would make prisons illegal, right? Except that there are cases where it's unarguably needed to deprive someone of their liberty.
The law is formulated along the lines of "unlawful deprivation of liberty" or somesuch (that's the translation of the Swedish law). Then there is the lawful deprivation of liberty -- arresting someone. This is a right granted to certain people under certain circumstances. The same goes for killing people in certain nation states.
This isn't me agreeing with death penalties -- I'm thoroughly against them. I do however see a gaping hole in your logic. :P
I'm not sure I understand that link. Am I forgetting a line?
Unfortunately, I have yet to see any evidence that the death penalty actually reduces crime . . . unless you go full-out Saudi Arabia-style with it.
In that case, the death penalty does not accomplish anything that life in prison can't. We have two options then for achieving the same objective (protecting society) – we can deprive someone of all of their rights (life, liberty and security) by murdering them, or just one (liberty) by locking them up. From a legal viewpoint, the answer is pretty obvious.
The only thing it does that life in prison can't is provide a bit of bloodthirsty satisfaction for the lowest-common-denominator in society and create the idea that it is okay for a government to kill its own people.
and here is the murder rate in America from 1920 to 1999.
It certainly looks like there's a connection between when executions stopped and murder rates rose, but the time period isn't very long and the trends are very irregular; if anybody has cleaner statistics for when a state stopped executions I'd love to see them.
That's because you didn't line up the years. The largest spike in executions is in the same years as crimes. Besides this, the largest crime reductions during the 90's were in areas w/o the death penalty.