Question for the death penalty abolitionists among us.

[Zuvio]

Imprison everyone for the rest of their lives if you planned on putting them to death in the first place? As a tax-payer, I'd prefer to have them put to death. ( <- still in the thought of my previous post!!!!)

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Zuvio: Imprison everyone for the rest of their lives if you planned on putting them to death in the first place? As a tax-payer, I'd prefer to have them put to death. ( <- still in the thought of my previous post!!!!)

Costs more to put them to death. Remove all the appeal rights, of which there are too many, and this goes away, of course.

[Zero Alpha]

see, if we found a way to bring back the murdered using the life of the murderer, i would be fine with it. problem is the deceased will stay that way. it seems to me two pointless deaths is worse than one.

I Know, how about we put them in prizon for 80 years and if they are still alive, kill them (Joke in case you cant tell)

[Timber Loftis]

On the other hand, if we found ways to bring people back to life, we could kill the murderer multiple time. "I sentence you to 5 deaths by lethal injection, to run concurrent."

Now, there's a happy thought.

[Faceman]

There are two main categories of theories on criminal justice and punishment.

• absolute theories: These concentrate on punishment as revenge or payment.
  Your death is the price you pay for the taking of another life. Brought up prominently by Kant: "Even if society unanimously decided to dissolve itself, the last imprisoned murderer would have to be executed, so that everybody receives what is the worth of his deeds."
• relative theories: They think of punishment as a tool for perevention, splitted up in:
  
  • special prevention: so that this criminal won't strike again
  • general prevention: so that others get the message and don't attempt to do that
  The judicial system here does not have to exact revenge or equality but has to protect the public.
  Many countries nowadays apply (mostly) relative theories which of course excludes the death penalty, as it is an extremely harsh measure to achieve crime prevention and studies show, that federally sanctioned killing could be the cause of a higher social acception of killing and thus increase murder rates.

So, whether you advocate death penalty or not depends on how you see your judiciary system and your society. I for myself advocate the relative theories
because:
I like to view society as a big family and I think that it is the law's obligation to educate people. Punishment may be a necessary element of education, but revenge is IMHO not.

[ 11-08-2003, 07:53 AM: Message edited by: Faceman ]

[Ramon de Ramon y Ramon]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: On the other hand, if we found ways to bring people back to life, we could kill the murderer multiple time. "I sentence you to 5 deaths by lethal injection, to run concurrent." Now, there's a happy thought.

While Timber's proposal for dealing out more appropriate punishments seems - unfortunately - currently impossible to realise, couldn't the very same purpose be almost as ideally served by reintroducing torture? Besides, he and others have claimed that the only significant problem they see with the current practice of the death penalty in is the uncertaintly over the percentage of the wrongfully convicted and executed. So, wouldn't the possibility of getting more confessions through torture be a perfect way to reduce that uncertainty?

And, come to think of it, as the excessive appeal opportunities for death row inmates were also cited as a problem, wouldn't the new degree of certainty of the guilt of convicts gained through a greatly increased percentage of confessions be the ideal argument to curtail those appeal options - if not to completely abolish them?

[Attalus]

I feel, and always have, that in an imperfect world, there will always be mistakes, but I don't think it an reason or excuse to get rid of such a useful public health device as the death penalty. As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote, "What the shield of society failed to protect, the sword of justice can avenge."

[Firestormalpha]

Now if they could just give the death penalty in a timely manner like in the old days, instead of delaying it for months or years at a time costing tax payers that much more expensive.

[Chewbacca]

With consideration of my philosophical stance of what occurs "after-life" leads me to beleive that if guilt was proven 100%, that is well beyond 'reasonable doubt' to the point of 'no doubt what so ever', that hypothetically my position on the death penalty would shift to 'neutral' rather than my current stance which is 'against'.

With consideration of my philosophiocal stance of what code of 'morality' I think is the "best", my 'against the death penalty' stance would not change what so ever in light of 100% evidence of guilt.

With consideration that I weigh my philosophical stances towards what happens 'before death' with greater importance than those that occur 'after life' my stance on the death penalty would remain 'against' in any circumstance.


I would rather debate the ethics of executing retarded people and people who commited capital crimes as minors. These peripheral issues are more important to me than the greater death penalty debate.

[Gammit]

Kill them. I don't mind paying money to wipe them from the Earth, but DO have a problem paying for them to live in prison... especially the facilities with cable television, gyms, etc.