Death penalty - right or wrong

[Meshavrischika]

This only shows that he shouldn't have been paroled; not that he should have been killed.

unfortunately alot of states don't have "real life in jail" but 20 to life and the guy is out in 15-20 years because of good behavior and overcrowding. This is one of the main reasons I dont' support "life in jail" becuase it's just flat NOT life in jail in most places.

 

[Taure]

The Death Penalty - and all forms of execution - are the most horrendous torture known to man.

It's looking into a person's eyes and saying "I am going to kill you, and here's exactly how I am going to do it...". Just try to imagine yourself, sitting there in court, in the moment that you're told that you're going to be executed. I cannot even imagine the feeling of dawning dread, the weight that is placed upon that person.

It's letting a person know exactly when the moment of their death is coming, and letting them wallow in fear and psychological pain.

It's prolonged torture to the extent that it breaks a person's mind under the weight of the mental trauma - a large proportion of people on death row go clinically insane after they are placed there.

And then you have the execution itself. Imagine sitting there in a chair, bound and strapped down, forced to watch as a needle enters your skin, knowing death is near...picture yourself tied up with a bag over your head, waiting for the sound of a gun that you'll never hear...a moment which lasts forever but is also over far too soon.

It's the perfect exemplar of cruel and unusual punishment, and so can even be counted as unconstitutional in the U.S.

I would say that between a man who has murdered, and a murderer who has been executed, the execution is the more evil act of the two.

...Needless to say, I'm against the death penalty.

 

[cantata]

unfortunately alot of states don't have "real life in jail" but 20 to life and the guy is out in 15-20 years because of good behavior and overcrowding. This is one of the main reasons I dont' support "life in jail" becuase it's just flat NOT life in jail in most places.

Hardly, in itself, a reason to execute, though. Change the parole system; don't start executing people.

We should never introduce the death penalty because keeping people in prison is too expensive. Money is never a reason to kill people.

The Death Penalty - and all forms of execution - are the most horrendous torture known to man.

I pretty much agree with you. It's certainly one of the worst. (I think prolonged physical torture would be worse for me, but we're all different.)

I think it's horrific, whatever someone's done.

 

[Meshavrischika]

Hardly, in itself, a reason to execute, though. Change the parole system; don't start executing people.

We should never introduce the death penalty because keeping people in prison is too expensive. Money is never a reason to kill people.



I pretty much agree with you. It's certainly one of the worst. (I think prolonged physical torture would be worse for me, but we're all different.)

I think it's horrific, whatever someone's done.

I never said a thing about money being a good reason. It isn't. Preventing the death of innocent people is. The parole system is not going to change (likely because of money) but one way or another these people have to be stopped. They make a choice to kill. They need to legally deal with the consequences (especially those who torture or cause horrific suffering to victims)

 

[cantata]

I never said a thing about money being a good reason. It isn't. Preventing the death of innocent people is. The parole system is not going to change (likely because of money) but one way or another these people have to be stopped.

Executing people is, famously, more expensive than keeping them locked up. Life imprisonment is more expensive than parole, but execution is more expensive than both. Life imprisonment would be a cheaper alternative to parole than execution.

Anyway, whatever the cost, the parole system should be changed, and people should not be killed. There is no excuse for executing people.

They make a choice to kill. They need to legally deal with the consequences (especially those who torture or cause horrific suffering to victims)

I don't believe any crime warrants execution as a punishment.

 

[Futuwwa]

State sanctioned murder is wrong.

It is a barbaric act of vengeance, not justice!

What's the point with rhetorics like these? It is not only a non-argument, but preaching to the choir too. Do you expect someone who believes in death sentence to change his mind because his beliefs are called barbaric?

 

[Futuwwa]

I entirely agree with you. The risk of executing an innocent person makes the death penalty an utterly unacceptable practice, in my opinion.

I believe that an intentional taking of a life, is very wrong. Don't know about the UK, but in the US its cheaper to keep a prison imprinsoned.

Does not the risk of incarcerating an innocent person make life imprisonment an utterly unacceptable practice?

The requirement for certainty is at a whole level of its own when death sentence is a potential outcome of the trial. The execution itself is fairly cheap - none of the execution methods in use at present cost more than a few thousand $ to carry out. The thing which makes the cost of a death sentence comparable to that of life inprisonment is the extensive judicial process required to minimize the risk of innocent conviction, and as a result, fewer people get innocently executed than would get innocently imprisoned for life in a system without death penalty.

I would rather execute one innocent person than ruin the life of three innocent people by throwing them in jail for life.

 

[Futuwwa]

Truth be told, it's obvious the death penalty doesn't stop anyone. You can see the differences (or lack thereof) in murder rates between countries with and without the death penalty.

News flash: Correlation doesn't prove causation!

It is of course debatable how effective a deterrent death penalty is, but to claim the deterrent value to be zero is to deny the existence of fear of death, probably the most primal instinct we have.

 

[cantata]

Does not the risk of incarcerating an innocent person make life imprisonment an utterly unacceptable practice?

Ideally, the same process of hunting for the closest thing to certainty would be carried out for those imprisoned for any considerable term.

I hardly think your argument justifies execution; it simply makes incarceration more troubling, and I am already troubled by it. That does not mean that I am not more troubled by execution.

 

[Futuwwa]

As for the money issue, it is easy for anyone to say that human life is infinitely valuable and money should never be an issue. It's easy to be an armchair philosopher, but if you'd be in charge of fund allocation in any field where human life is an issue, you might find that such attitudes are just not realistic.

The cold hard truth is, money can be spent to save life. Lack of money causes loss of life. Different policies (such as whether to build that highway or not, whether to implement that particular security system or not, whether to legalize a particular product or not) have direct consequences in saved life versus cost and other drawbacks. Meaning that to be able to pick the best alternative in terms of utility versus cost, you need to set a price tag on human life.

For those of you who think policies concerning life and death should be unaffected by concerns of cost, would you be willing to have the entire GDP of your country spent to save the life of one citizen, if that would be required to save him/her? Why not? Human life is infinitely valuable, after all.

 

[Futuwwa]

Ideally, the same process of hunting for the closest thing to certainty would be carried out for those imprisoned for any considerable term.

I hardly think your argument justifies execution; it simply makes incarceration more troubling, and I am already troubled by it. That does not mean that I am not more troubled by execution.

Well, of course, in that case you would have an equal chance of innocent execution and innocent incarceration. Then, incarceration would actually cause a slightly lower chance of miscarriage of justice than execution would, due to incarceration being reversible whereas execution is not.

But then, you'll have every life sentence cost both as much as (at present) life sentence AND execution cost (as you'd first have to ensure certainty, and still pay for life imprisonment). Money which could be spent in other (probably more efficient) ways to save or improve lives.

 

[stan1980]

I don't agree with the death sentence, but how exactly is it more expensive to execute them, than keep them in prison for life? I don't doubt it is more expensive as a couple of people have mentioned, but i can't work out how it is more expensive.

 

[Meshavrischika]

I don't agree with the death sentence, but how exactly is it more expensive to execute them, than keep them in prison for life? I don't doubt it is more expensive as a couple of people have mentioned, but i can't work out how it is more expensive.

the appeals process I think.

 

[Futuwwa]

It's not the execution which is expensive, but the lengthy judicial process which is carried out to ensure that the chance to condemn innocents to death will be as small as possible.

 

[cantata]

For those of you who think policies concerning life and death should be unaffected by concerns of cost, would you be willing to have the entire GDP of your country spent to save the life of one citizen, if that would be required to save him/her? Why not? Human life is infinitely valuable, after all.

If we gave the entire GDP of our country, it is likely that hundreds of people would die as a result. This is a specious argument.

The fact remains that killing people because it's cheaper to do so is very different from deciding not to spend money in order to save someone.

 

[Futuwwa]

If we gave the entire GDP of our country, it is likely that hundreds of people would die as a result. This is a specious argument.

The fact remains that killing people because it's cheaper to do so is very different from deciding not to spend money in order to save someone.

Well, whenever society spends money to save someone, it also (implicitly) decides not to spend it to save someone else. You can always find ways to spend money to save people; increase medical funding, improve security measures, raise safety requirements on goods, buy military hardware that achieves equivalent military efficiency for less manpower, etc.

I wonder how many cancer patients could be cured for the cost of one appeals process.

 

[cantata]

Well, whenever society spends money to save someone, it also (implicitly) decides not to spend it to save someone else. You can always find ways to spend money to save people; increase medical funding, improve security measures, raise safety requirements on goods, buy military hardware that achieves equivalent military efficiency for less manpower, etc.

I wonder how many cancer patients could be cured for the cost of one appeals process.

I'm sure you know that the way money is allocated in most governments makes that remark pretty incoherent.

 

[Futuwwa]

If all departments have a fixed budget, yes. But that would also invalidate your point about raising the certainty requirement on all longer incarcerations to that required of death sentences. From which part of the judicial system should funding be cut to pay for that?

 

[cantata]

If all departments have a fixed budget, yes. But that would also invalidate your point about raising the certainty requirement on all longer incarcerations to that required of death sentences. From which part of the judicial system should funding be cut to pay for that?

I'm not claiming there should be fixed departmental budgets. I'm simply stating that there are.

I just don't think you can justify actively going about killing people on the grounds that you don't have enough cash not to. It's pretty different from deciding that you won't have the state funding the treatment of all cancer patients with the most expensive cutting edge treatments in order to allow children to be educated, for example.

Actively killing someone is different from not saving someone. You've still not shown me how that's not important.

 

[Futuwwa]

Ok, fair point about actively killing compared to not saving.

But then, the question at hand is not one of whether murder convicts should be actively killed or not actively killed. It's one of whether they should be actively killed or actively suffer for life in prison.

If you prefer, I'll revise the final line of #56 to: I wonder how many innocent people who are rotting in jail (actively made to suffer, if you will) wouldn't be there if the money saved by executing people would be used to improve the judicial process.