Death Penalty: Yea or Nay?

[Dan Gurden]

This is a subject that scares me. As a deep seated law abiding citizen, whos worst crimes include raiding the office stationary cupboard...

All it takes to get a valid answer is one question.

1 - If you have been falsely convicted, for whatever reason, of a serious crime, are you prepared to face the death penalty as punishment for the crime that you did not commit?

If the answer is yes, then you can rightly praise the death penalty.

If you are unwilling to die for someone elses crime then you are sane.

The problem is, unless you were there, standing next to the crime and a key witness, HOW can anyone be totally sure of a persons guilt?

Combine that with the inequality of the death sentence (poor white trash and minorities vs. middle class suburban and above... Look at the statistics of the same crimes and who's on death row) then you have to be a blood thirsty bastard or a victim to support the death penalty.

At least in my opinion.

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DanG.

"Hi, I'm Commander Troy McClure, you might remember me from other academy training holo-simulations as, Abandon Ship, the quickest way out, and I sense danger, 101 things you dont need a Betazoid to know..."

http://www.theventure.freeserve.co.uk

[Captain Blake]

My immediate gut reaction is that Killing People is Bad.

But, when I think about it a little more, then I think, well, there are some things so bad that death is an appropriate punishment. And, somehow, giving people a better life in prison than most of my relatives have, sticks in my craw.

Then, when I realize that in the USA today, Justice belongs to those with the best Lawyers, and a disproportionate number of poor, minority, and developmentally disabled people are on death row, I wonder what's going on.

Rich people don't end up on Death Row. Is that because they don't commit murder? Not from some of the cases I've seen/heard of. They have good lawyers, who plea bargain down the charges to something that doesn't get the death penalty. Or get the person off. Or confuse the issue to the point where the police can't/won't do anything.

The poor man (death row inmates are overwhelmingly male) can't afford a good lawyer to get him the better treatment, and so gets convicted of the death penalty.

When our Justice system doesn't have an inherant bias toward who has the best lawyer, and when two people can commit the exact same crime, and receive the exact same punishment, when Justice really is blind, then I'll feel right about supporting a death penalty.

Unfortunately, in our flawed world, I don't know if that'll happen anytime soon.

Alex

[calguard66]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Phantom:
As long as it is possible to be 100% sure that the person charged with the crime (murder, treason etc.) is guilty. That is the problem, cases like Bundy and Barnardo I have no qualms about seeing them dead. If there is the slightest chance that the courts might be wrong, then given them life.

The last person executed in Canada was later found to be innocent.

</font>

It is never possible to be 100% certain of anything. Is it ok to give an innocent person life? By that logic, we'd never punish anyone for anything.

The problem isn't with the punishment, the problem is with the system that deals it out.

States have been making their own laws and punishments for 200+ years... the US is too large an area for everything to be exactly the same everywhere. How would Sweden feel if they had the same laws as France?

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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[calguard66]

Murder, in California, is defined as:
"The unlawful killing of a human being or fetus by another human being."

China and the US the same... YUP. That's why so many Americans die trying to get into China, Cuba, and Mexico every year.

The US is FAR from perfect... but I'll take it over anywhere else on the globe.

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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[Traska]

If you have been falsely convicted, for whatever reason, of a serious crime, are you prepared to face the death penalty as punishment for the crime that you did not commit?

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I'm not prepared to spend a single day in jail for a crime I know I didn't do. What do we do, do away with jail?

Seriously, if I'm innocent, honest-to-goodness innocent, then ANY sentence imposed upon me is unreasonable. Mind you, death IS a tad permanent.

I still can't support life without parole. We don't make our prisoners DO anything, because if we do, it's slave labor, which our 16th prsident (rightfully) wrote out of our laws and practices. So that leaves us with warehousing.

It's like cemetary burials. What's with planting people crops, anyway? Heck, ashes to ashes and all that. When I die, anything that the organ bank doesn't have a use for is going to be reduced to powder, that's it.

But back to the death penalty... can someone come up with a better plan that violates the USA's code of ethics less? Remember, no cruel and unusual punishment.

Which brings us back to life.

Why don't we just set aside a state (like Utah or Kansas) and build one big prison. Over the whole state. Save us the trouble of building thousands of lil' ones.



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"You got your Star Trek Trek in my roleplaying game!"
"You got your roleplaying game in my Star Trek!"
LUGTrek, two great tastes that taste great together

[LCM]

I'm curious. Has anyone involved in this discussion:

1) Killed someone in anger?

2) Killed someone under orders (e.g., in a military confrontation)?

3) Killed someone protecting someone else directly?

I think there would be far less debate on whether things such as the death penalty were morally justifiable if more people had found themselves in these situations. It is impossible to know if someone is irredeemable; the only certainty in this discussion is that death is a final solution... and I've always been a little leery when people start trumpeting too loudly about "Final Solutions."

Like it or not, since death is one of the only penalties that cannot be suspended or nullified once sentence has been carried out, it may indeed be one that should be beyond our authority to employ.

And just because a majority might think the death penalty is acceptable, that wouldn't make it right. Law is just as often about protecting the unpopular minority from the emotional, pissed-off majority as it is about promoting the common weal.

Would you want it done to you if you'd killed someone?

[mactavish]

Would I myself like to be executed for committing a crime? What kind of question is that?! Of course not!

Would I deserve to be executed if I committed some heinous crime (i.e. pre-meditated murder, rape, child molestation, etc.)? Possibly.

Should I be executed for committing a crime? No.

As has been said, the taking of a human life - regardless of the victim - is not justified. I can see no way that a civilized people can believe that it is just to take a life, even if it's in retribution for some hideous crime.

Is warehousing criminals the answer? Unfortunately no.

How about rehabilitation? Unlikely.

So what should be done with criminals? What can be done that a.) does not violate their Constitutional rights, and b.) satisfies the victims' need for justice?

Have I ever killed anyone in "the heat of the moment," in combat, or under some other circumstance? No. Does that disqualify me from concluding that capital punishment is wrong? Nope.

On the flip side of this argument, do you believe in corporal punishment (i.e. beating, paddling, etc.) for children (and/or adults)?

The reason that I ask is because capital punishment is the ultimate form of corporal punishment, and I don't think one can condone one without also endorsing the other.

mactavish out.

[Phantom]

In cases such as Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Williams, Barnardo, Hillside Stranglers, Rameriz (The Night Stalker), Berkhowitz etc. It is possible to be 100% in cases like this, and these are the type of cases that I was speaking about.



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In the Praetors Name!

[Robert Lai]

In general, I support the death penalty when applied to appropriate crimes, and subject to strict judicial review.

Perhaps the overall cost of lifelong internment vs. appeals/security/apparatus for an execution is lower, but I feel that's a poor comparison when it comes to justifying or not justifying the value of a human life. It costs less to not send your child to college, too, but that doesn't mean we won't work our fingers to the bone to provide that opportunity to them.

In most cases, the prisoner under sentence of death has arrived there not because of circumstance, but because of conscious choice. Even with the most horrendous childhood or upbringing, at some point, you become responsible for your own actions. I think we see 'personal responsibility' as a recurring theme in the Trek universe, if not our own.

Can the courts make mistakes? Certainly. Judgment is dependent on information, and the absence/omission of information, held against a statistically large number of cases, will inevitably lead to a flawed judgment, and the imprisonment or execution of the wrong person. The courts are a human institution; we nonetheless trust them to make the best possible judgment, and agree to be bound by those judgments.

Will we ever be able to be completely certain of facts prior to execution? It's doubtful, but I believe that an objective and fair process is possible.

As for the deterrent value of an execution or a public execution, much is made of how we've become desensitized to violence. That may be true, but - more importantly - it is the perceived gain of the criminal action weighed against the POSSIBLE risk of imprisonment and/or execution. As long as the perceived gain (emphasis on perceived, as it's rarely a logical point-to-point comparison) outweighs the potential/probable consequences, the death penalty will be found lacking in deterrent value.

If the death penalty is not the answer, then we must look at the purpose of the institution - is prison meant to punish, or to reform? Educate or isolate? If punishment, is life imprisonment effective on both a societal and economic level? If reform, how does one adequately measure this, and are those decisions any less prone to error than the decision to execute a prisoner for their crimes?

Bob

[calguard66]

It has been shown that the deterrence value of a punishment is based on the likelyhood of the punishment, not on the harshness of the punishment.

In other words, no punishment is a deterrent unless the potential criminal believes he will be caught, and belives he will be punished.

With the way our system works now, most criminals are not caught. Most that are caught are not punished, or given punishment so light as to be effectively no punishment at all. In fact, when you realize that a prison/ jail term often compares FAVORABLY with the potential criminal's life on the outside (clean clothes, food, shower, medical care) it may be that we're reinforcing the wrong behavior.

Therefore, there is almost no deterrent value in our current system.

The principles of the US justice system are fine... in fact they're wonderful. We just need to clean up the execution (if you'll pardon the pun).

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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[Liquidator Queeg]

Murder is morally wrong--no matter what kind of emotionally-charged, anti-crime rhetoric it is cloaked in. And as for the argument that it saves money to kill criminals, specifically murderers and/or rapists, that's just disgusting, "really reaching for justifying straws" logic, IMHO.

The death penalty is all about vengeance. It has nothing to do with money, or punishment, or justice, or deterring future crimes. The existence of the death penalty proves only that, at its core, the society that practises it is just as morally bankrupt as the criminals the society despises so much.

Steve

P.S. Flame away!

[calguard66]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Steven A Cook:
Murder is morally wrong--no matter what kind of emotionally-charged, anti-crime rhetoric it is cloaked in. And as for the argument that it saves money to kill criminals, specifically murderers and/or rapists, that's just disgusting, "really reaching for justifying straws" logic, IMHO.

The death penalty is all about vengeance. It has nothing to do with money, or punishment, or justice, or deterring future crimes. The existence of the death penalty proves only that, at its core, the society that practises it is just as morally bankrupt as the criminals the society despises so much.

Steve

P.S. Flame away! </font>

Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being or fetus by another human being. State-sanctioned execution is not murder, because it is lawful. Neither is abortion.

A police officer or citizen is justified in killing in self defense or defense of others. Given due process, if agents of the state or citizens are justified in killing to PREVENT a murder or PROTECT a life, why wouldn't they be justified after the fact? Is the criminal protected by the fact that he was successful?

If a state is justified in killing to protect itself from external threats, why wouldn't it be justified in killing to defent itself from internal threats?

If you don't believe killing of any sort is justified, how do you propose that a state or individual defend against others (like me, Saddam and Bin Ladden) who disagree?

Leviathan should not punish the innocent, however it cannot allow fear of punishing the innocent to paralize it and prevent it from protecting it's populace.

The current US system needs to be re-balanced and applied fairly. However, the underlying ideals and theory are sound.

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"I'd rather die standing than live on my knees..."
Shania Twain

[This message has been edited by calguard66 (edited 07-24-2001).]

[qerlin]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Dan Stack:
qerlin, I believe the cost of execution includes the endless appeals, legal costs, etc.</font>

Excellent point.

[qerlin]

"The death penalty is all about vengeance."

Or is it about justice?

[qerlin]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by LCM:
I'm curious. Has anyone involved in this discussion:

1) Killed someone in anger?

2) Killed someone under orders (e.g., in a military confrontation)?

3) Killed someone protecting someone else directly?
</font>

Yes. And it's the hardest freakin' thing you'll ever do. He deserved it, but that doesn't make me feel any better having done it. In the same situation, though, I'd still drop him. there's a reason I'm not a policeman anymore.

And just for the record, it was #3.

[This message has been edited by qerlin (edited 07-24-2001).]