Even in cases where it's proved beyond doubt that he/she murdered that man, that he/she killed that child.. I don't understand this thinking that many of you seem to have. Why do you want these people kept alive on this planet when jails are letting "lesser criminals" off early just to free up jail space? It's like when people stick up for pedophiles "because they can't help it".... Can someone explain please? Why shouldn't we get rid of these people? Silent Bob, but these are the people that are ruining society. Most men,and most women, are not like this. They don't want to murder, or rape, or..whatever....If we could get rid of all these "people" this place would be a lot better off. I don't see how anyone could deny this Woody,see? Anyone that thinks those b@stards need another shot at life are deranged Jackal, im from the UK.I can only WISH that the death penalty is bought back. And im not the only one that thinks like this...far from it Thomas, i like you. Too many people lack common sense
Best Answer:
BOSS at 08 May,2013
There are so many ethical implications. Do you know how many innocent people were sentenced to capital punishment right up until the 1950s, only for a few years later to be officially exonerated from the crime they were on trail for? Quite a few indeed. Also, how many criminal masterminds do you reckon would exploit CP, and set up some poor dumb defenceless fool? It's not progress. Believe me, there are so many more ramifications with reinstating the death penalty compared to prolonging life sentences.
Other Answers:
- the uk and europe is weak.
- If we kill them, then we are sinking to their level.
- 1 - Many men have been convicted (proved beyond "reasonable doubt") and put on death row, but later exonerated. Many of those men were, in fact minorities for whom the jury had no sympathy. Many innocent men have been executed. And there are clear cases where the same happened to women.
WTF is wrong with those who are OK with executing (murdering) innocent people as "collateral damage" in the war on violent crime?
2 - We, as a society, stoop to the level of the beasts that we condemn when we deliberately choose to kill people who are jailed and no longer a threat. - To be clear, I think those people who speak up for pedos are speaking up for their right to feel attracted to whoever they feel attracted to. I've never seen anyone defend the rape of a child because "they can't help it." That doesn't make any more sense than it does to say that all rape is okay because men are attracted to women or women are attracted to men. Being attracted to something doesn't mean you can't help it.
Now, for your question: Some people believe that all life is sacred and should never be taken no matter what a person has done. That's fine if they believe that, but the only hypocritical thing about it is that many of these people are strongly Pro-Choice as well, which makes no sense if that's what they believe about life. And they often tend to try to paint Pro-Lifers as hypocrites for being for the death penalty when a person is guilty, which has nothing to do with defending innocent life. It's all hypocritical, or at least lacking in sense.
But I happen to agree with you here. If we know for sure that a person is guilty - and only if we know that for sure - then I think removing these people from the planet is the best thing to do. The difference between us is that I believe in doing that to all people who are responsible for society's atrocities, and that includes the overwhelming majority of people on the planet, who are too stupid to rationally question anything their society does. Since those people are the majority, they aren't likely to go along with that, so instead we have a system whereby they're financially enslaved to rich people for their entire lives. At least it's something.
EDIT @ Slutty Pineapple: Sir John Fortescue - I'm not against it whatsoever,just sometimes it's ridiculous how it takes years for it to actually happen.
- I don't think it's right for any human being, or group of human beings, to make a decision to kill another human being, or group of human beings.
It's barbaric and uncivilized.
Not to mention, it's impossible to apply fairly (convicted blacks and men are put to death at rates that dwarf convicted whites and women), and it's impossible to be 100% certain of guilt, 100% of the time, meaning that mistakes will be (and have proven to have been) made.
But mostly, it just takes the statement "killing in revenge is okay" and says "Yep, that's true." And that's just evil. No two ways about it: it's evil. - Because by murdering a murder you are being hypocritical. I'm more for forced hard labor camps, so that way they are paying for their own room and board. Also the hard work is hard punishment in and of its self.
- I'm for the death penalty for several reasons, many evil people can't learn from their mistakes because they're evil and second they're wasting tax dollars.I don't believe in torture death but a quick death.I say death penalty for the most heinous crimes because that is justice,those people don't deserve any chance of redemption because they are too evil to being rationalized with.Even if they did learn form their mistakes, still it's only fair they die because they took the life of someone. The reason why I'm opposed to keeping them because simply they don't have enough resources to take care of people who might be be back in civilized society,why bother with a person without conscious will do no good anyways?
- im for it.... better make sure you get it right though - it would be awful to execute innocent people ..
though in some cases - they are obviously as guilty as sin - execute, absolutely.. torture before you do it, in some of these cases. - It doesn't solve anything, innocent people have been killed because of it, it's barbaric, inhumane, no better than the crimes that are supposedly being 'corrected', and so on.
- People are only against the death penalty when it's SOMEBODY ELSE'S family member that was brutally raped or murdered. When it's one of their own, they sing quite a different tune.
I am from the UK. Everyone is against the death penalty here, and so was I before considering how *I* would feel if someone in *my* family were murdered. I would want blood. - It just isn't an ethical way to live, an eye for an eye etc. How can you show that killing is wrong by killing? It makes no sense. I know keeping prisoners in jail is expensive but no life is worthless. You have to say that what a person did was bad. And plus there have been far to many instances where someone can be proved innocent later, this was why it was abolished here in the UK 50 years ago. USA is the only westernised country still practising the death penalty. I personally think it is brutal and backward, but obvs this iz just my opinion
- I'm going to have to go with Rowdy on this. even though he defriended me he's still right. You can't pardon the dead if you find out later they didn't do it. I forget who said it but it's better ten guilty people go free than one innocent person have their freedom taken. Would you be willing to be that one innocent person who has his life taken?
- I am iffy about it all.
I think prison should be about rehabilitation more than "you are punished. You will serve your punishment, then go back to the world in which you were a criminal in after being surrounded by even worse criminals". It serves no purpose and doesn't help the public at all.
If a criminal, be it a murderer, rapist, thief, and yes, I know this is going to be a bit off, even I am hesitating in saying this, a child molester, are capable of being reformed from their criminal behavior, then that ends should be worked towards, otherwise we are not stopping criminals, just restraining them for a while.
Reforming criminals in to law abiding citizens will serve a better purpose than holding a criminal in a dangerous environment for a certain amount of time, which would probably just make him/her worse.
Make them serve their time, but make that time about rehabilitation while still being prisoners. If they fail in becoming law abiding citizens/moral people, then they should face the death penalty "only if" there crime merits it. - Many anti-death penalty advocates believe that we shouldn't use the death penalty because of innocent people in the past getting executed before modern technology(DNA, etc). However, now that there is DNA evidence, a person shouldn't be given the death penalty if they "haven't" been proven guilty with DNA. If DNA can prove it, they should be terminated immediately.
Some will say that it "costs" too much of the tax payer's money to keep them on death row. I personally could care less how much it costs to terminate these disgusting killers. Many of these same people don't have any issues with war and the large amount of money it takes to kill people. Also, another way to ease the tax payer burden would be to terminate them quicker and stop wasting time and money keeping them alive. Keeping people in cages for the rest of their lives is actually more inhumane than just terminating them.
But whatever, they have the right to their opinion. I just happen to disagree with them. - Taking a life is never right. We are no better than them if we execute them. Lock them up.
@sheesh I agree with you that taking a life is wrong. However, are you just referring to human life. If you believe that it is ok to take an animals life then you are a hypocrite. - I have several issues with the death penalty.
The first - and most obvious - is what happens when the wrong person is convicted?
Even with the best, most equal legal system imaginable then mistakes will happen, and I cannot contemplate living in a society where the state would take the life of an innocent man.
The second is on an issue of morality.
I think killing people is wrong. All people. The only possible justification is in times of war. As such I cannot support the death penalty. I do however believe that there should be a rising scale of punishments, with "life" meaning just that.
We have a justice system, not a vengeance system, and that's how I prefer it.
If you are reverting to scripture where it says "an eye for an eye" then that's old testament which says all sorts of things - if I recall my school days correctly the new testament says something like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". - There are so many ethical implications. Do you know how many innocent people were sentenced to capital punishment right up until the 1950s, only for a few years later to be officially exonerated from the crime they were on trail for? Quite a few indeed.
Also, how many criminal masterminds do you reckon would exploit CP, and set up some poor dumb defenceless fool? It's not progress. Believe me, there are so many more ramifications with reinstating the death penalty compared to prolonging life sentences. - I'm against the death penalty because I'm just morally opposed to killing others as a punishment.
I'm not religious, so I don't believe the same "morals" are inherent in every single person. "Right" and "wrong" is entirely subjective. Yes, that means I believe there are people out there who truly believe it's perfectly okay to murder. But who really gets to decide what is right and what is wrong. Why should murderers die just because YOU want them to? We may have police officers, judges, etc., who are in charge of the law. I have no problem with that. I just personally feel that the only person who should be able to decide when the life of another person ends is that person themself. No matter how "evil" the person is by society standards, not even if they ended the life of someone else, I still believe every living person on this earth should have the unconditional right to live if they want to. - why would anybody support it? its completely unnecessary, it is used disproportionately on marginalized groups, and having it there means innocent people will keep getting killed over and over again for nothing more than to sate the public's thirst for revenge.
http://www.businessinsider.com/last-meals-of-innocent-executed-men-2013-2 - I think you know where I stand on this debate. If it's 100% provable and no mistake can be made, a murderer should be put to death.
I don't mean an accidental murder or anything with a large gray area.
Our prisons are past max capacity, and rehabilitation is a joke in the system largely because the system is so flawed.
If someone is convicted of murder, they deserve death. - I'm absolutely for capital punishment in cases where an individual has been proven to be absolutely guilty of a heinous crime. I'm not for decade long appeal periods and throwing money down the drain. We definitely need to fix that at the very least.
The U.S. prison system is just getting to be an endless black hole of misappropriated funds, gang culture, and wasted potential. It's depressing. - Many people have been convicted of murders "beyond doubt" that have later been proved to be innocent. No system is infallable, because of mistakes or flaws in the justice system. Witnesses, (where they are part of the process), prosecutors and jurors can all make mistakes. When this is coupled with flaws in the system it is inevitable that innocent people will be convicted of crimes. Where capital punishment is used such mistakes cannot be put right.
The wrongful execution of an innocent person is an injustice that can never be rectified. There is ample evidence that such mistakes are possible: in the USA, 130 people sentenced to death have been found innocent since 1973 and released from death row. The average time on death row before these exonerations was 11 years.
We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, it is not justice. Crimes other than murder do not receive a punishment that mimics the crime - for example rapists are not punished by sexual assault, and people guilty of assault are not ceremonially beaten up.
As there is a serious risk of executing the innocent then one of the key principles of retribution - that people should get what they deserve (and therefore only what they deserve) - is violated by the current implementation of capital punishment in the USA, and any other country where errors have taken place.
Personally I believe life imprisonment without possibility of parole causes much more suffering to the offender than a painless death after a short period of imprisonment. Then of course in the case for example of a terrorist, execution is more likely to make that person a matryr.
In addition it has been shown that the death penalty is not a deterent, in the USA, more murders take place in states where capital punishment is allowed. In 2010, the murder rate in states where the death penalty has been abolished was 4.01 per cent per 100,000 people. In states where the death penalty is used, the figure was 5.00 per cent. These calculations are based on figures from the FBI. The gap between death penalty states and non-death penalty states rose considerably from 4 per cent difference in 1990 to 25 per cent in 2010. This information comes from the FBI, see link.
A civilized society must be based on values and principles that are higher than those it condemns. Violence can never bring an end to violence; all it can do is provoke more violence. The courts are for justice not revenge or to play out our emotions towards a human, regardless of the disgusting and vile actions they may have committed. An eye for an eye and the world goes blind, the only way to achieve true justice is to leave emotions out of the equation. - Because this is the 21st century.