Is Capital Punishment ever justified?
- Thread starter hapaboy
- Start date
If you want to prevent them from destroying innocent lives a second time, you in fact do.
I have no problem with a life sentence without parole, as long as attempts are made to rehabilitate with verifiable successful results.
I still don't see where you have to kill them in our system of "justice."
As I have mentioned before, living in a cell the rest of one's life seems punishment enough for taking the life of another.
The thought of prison time certainly kept me from killing my ex wife at times.
Those who are so emotionally imbalanced as to kill, despite knowing they will be punished, need to be dealt with. Killing them is one solution, but that suggests that it is impossible to reform them.
Many "killers" have been discovered to have chemical imbalances. To deny their life, is to deny that science might soon come up with a cure for their disease.
I say lock them up until we can find a way to rehabilitate them.
Dude, please take this personally.
Anyone who has to bring up their "Mensa" status is a chump.
Simply make arguments that are better than someone else. We will all see whether you got a brain or not.
That last sentence was somewhat nonsensical. I think what you wanted to say was "can you prove that there are statistics to prove that the death penalty has never reduced crime". Quite a blunder for a "genius". I can show studies that reveal no deterrent value to the death penalty and I cite FBI statistics.
Studies on death penalty and deterrence:
Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Examining the Effect of Executions on Murder in Texas. Authors John Sorenson, Robert Wrinkle, Victoria Brewer, and James Marquart, Crime and Delinquency 481-93 1999.
Deterrence, Brutalization, and the Death Penalty: Another Examination of Oklahomaâs Return to Capital Punishment. William Bailey,Criminology 711-33 (1998)
Effects of an Execution on Homicides in California. Ernie Thompson, 3 Homicide Studies 129-150 (1999)
FBI statistics also support lack of criminal deterrence in states that have the death penalty: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_00/00crime2.pdf
"The FBI report also showed that in 2000, 49% of murder victims were white and 48.5% are black. Although blacks and whites are victims of murder in about equal numbers, over 80% of the victims in death penalty cases resulting in execution since 1976 have been white."
Not only do these recent studies show no deterrence, they show that murder rates have risen in states that have applied the death penalty.
The death penalty was abolished in Canada in 1976 and homicide rates there in 2001 were 23% lower than in 1975.
PM your true name, I'll check membership records with Mensa.
You're still not addressing the issue that DESPITE attempts being made "to rehabilitate with verifiable succssful results" innocent people are still being killed by ex-cons who were released back into society!
See above.
See previous posts. It isn't happening!
By that reasoning, Optional, when we capture terrorists and Saddam we shouldn't kill them but instead lock 'em up and try to "rehabilitate" them because hey, for all we know, Saddam may have a chemical imbalance. Does that justify what he has done? What the terrorists have done? Your posts on the Iraq poll thread today have advocated torturing and killing the bastards. That you can state that yet be in favor of attempts to rehabilitate violent criminals in our own country that have, lets be honest, murdered far more Americans than terrorists, seem to contradict each other.
dGAB at the top of his form, which of course means avoiding the main issues.
The only important applicability of deterrence as applied to the death penalty is that those who are executed for their crimes will not be able to do so again, which is happening over and over and over to innocent Americans of all races and age groups.
And to imply that the reasons crime has dropped in Canada because of abolition of the death penalty is absurd!! What, did the criminals suddenly say to themselves "Hmm, no death penalty anymore! I think I'll stop committing crimes now"?
Based on the reasoning you propose that maxpi go to Iraq, you yourself should be forced to become a victim of a repeat offender.
And when, oh when, will you answer the question about your wife?
Personally, I'd like to ask someone who is against capital punishment why they are against it and get their views. Then, if some rapist/murderer killed their sister, mother, daughter right in front of them while they were tied up and then looked that person in the eyes and laughed while pulling the knife out and whistling while going out the door -- would they still oppose the death penalty?
Perception is everything. It is easy to make rational decisions until something very irrational happens to you.
It is sort of like everything else in life. Everyone loves cheap gas and oil but doesn't want to think about how it can be made cheaper by annexing countries with oil.
A lot of people like to eat hamburgers but cringe when they see videos of living cows being dropped into a gigantic shredder.
That's why questions like these are a waste of time. I'd say something that only applies to me and not to someone else. Who am I to say the death penalty is good to someone who lost a relative to an unfair trial where he or she was later vindicated posthumously?
Perception is everything. It is easy to make rational decisions until something very irrational happens to you.
It is sort of like everything else in life. Everyone loves cheap gas and oil but doesn't want to think about how it can be made cheaper by annexing countries with oil.
A lot of people like to eat hamburgers but cringe when they see videos of living cows being dropped into a gigantic shredder.
That's why questions like these are a waste of time. I'd say something that only applies to me and not to someone else. Who am I to say the death penalty is good to someone who lost a relative to an unfair trial where he or she was later vindicated posthumously?
Quote from hapaboy:
You're still not addressing the issue that DESPITE attempts being made "to rehabilitate with verifiable succssful results" innocent people are still being killed by ex-cons who were released back into society!
See above.
See previous posts. It isn't happening!
By that reasoning, Optional, when we capture terrorists and Saddam we shouldn't kill them but instead lock 'em up and try to "rehabilitate" them because hey, for all we know, Saddam may have a chemical imbalance. Does that justify what he has done? What the terrorists have done? Your posts on the Iraq poll thread today have advocated torturing and killing the bastards. That you can state that yet be in favor of attempts to rehabilitate violent criminals in our own country that have, lets be honest, murdered far more Americans than terrorists, seem to contradict each other.
I don't see the inconsistency you do.
Firstly, I do make a distinction between American citizens, and those from other countries. I believe American citizens are deserving of certain rights given to them under our constitution. I don't see anything in our constitution that extends those rights same rights to those we are at war with.
So, treating terrorists with the same brutality that they display when they attack the United States is quite different in my mind than the way we treat some murderer who kills someone in the heat of emotions here at home....or even if the murderer is cold blooded in his killing of a fellow citizen.
When the terrorists kill, their attack is on the country. That is war. A direct assault on the country, not a murder of a citizen by another citizen, or even a murder of a citizen by a non citizen.
One has the intention to terminate a life, the other has an intention to terminate the country. Very different motives.
Those who attack our country from outside, should be handled in the most agressive and if necessary violent and brutal methods.
Now, what about Timothy McVeigh and John Walker Lihdh. Should they be treated differntly than say some terrorist who is an Iraqi citizen?
My answer is absolutely yes. The Iraqi should be handled by the military branch of our country, as he is a soldier acting in a war against America.
McVeigh, Lindh, and Ted Kaczynski are American citizens and have the rights granted to them under the constitution. They should have the rights any other American citizen has to justice, but others who are not citizens have not earned that right.
Second point....that we are failing to rehabilitate people is a failure of that system. Killing citizens because we don't know how to rehabilitate them is not the answer. Locking them up is. Searching for methods that will rehabilitate is necessary, not killing them. If we have to lock them up until we find an answer, I am in favor of that.
Aphie, questions like that have been asked repeatedly in this thread, as though public policy and criminal law should be concieved and fashioned only at the moment of victimization. There are death penalty opponents among relatives of murder victims. (And I can prove this) Hapaboy and others are sort of the text equivalant here of the abortion protestors who carry 10 foot photographs of aborted fetuses. They rely strictly on emotion and the sense of revenge and outrage in debating the death penalty. The idea that a victim would want to kill his victimizer is rather mundane and contributes little to advancing effective criminal justice. The questions to be asked for capital punishment are simple:
1) Is it just punishment
2) Does it serve society well.
I would like to hear from the death penalty advocates what they think are the causes of the unusually high level of serious criminal behavior in the United States. Questions such as: are the criminals born with a certain disposition to criminal behavior? or are people taught to be criminals?
1) Is it just punishment
2) Does it serve society well.
I would like to hear from the death penalty advocates what they think are the causes of the unusually high level of serious criminal behavior in the United States. Questions such as: are the criminals born with a certain disposition to criminal behavior? or are people taught to be criminals?
Technically and legally you may be correct in differentiating between terrorists and American murderers. The ultimate motives may be different but the end result, American deaths, is however the same.
Terrorists truly do attack our country. Murderers, by preying upon fellow citizens, do no less. Both are attacks on our way of life, our Constitution, and what we hold precious. The same holds for rapists, child molesters, and drug traffickers.
These are heinous acts that cross the global boundary of humanity - which makes no distinction of citizenship.
If a loved one of yours is killed by an American low-life drifter or a suicide bomber, it makes no difference. The victim is still dead.
Would you grieve less somehow because you lost a loved one to a fellow American or grieve more because the perpetrator was a foreign national?
You keep bringing up the idea of rehabilitation. Do you not believe that certain individuals are simply and purely evil? World history has proven over and over again that it would appear to be the case.
What I can say for sure is that regardless of the perpetrator's motives, I know murder victims were not given a choice between life and death. Victims receive the death penalty without a trial, with no appeals, with no mercy and for no reason.