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Death Penalty Views


KKnox

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Lemaricus Davidson was indeed sentenced to die.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/oct/31/davidson-death-penalty-channon-christian-newsom/?partner=popular

 

I don't see a problem with a revenge justification as long as we're 100% certain about the person's guilt. But I see the word 'barbaric' being used, and I'm a little confused as to why. Does anyone mind expanding on this idea?

One day (probably 10-15 years from now) this man will be led into a room in which his life will be ended. This execution will have been scheduled 1-2 months in advance. He will be able to count down the number of days he has left to live for weeks. On the day of the execution, an IV will be placed in his arm and drugs will be injected into him that cause his death. All of the people that make this happen will be doing their job and will be payed by you and I (taxpayers). You and I will be powerless to stop this killing, even though we will have known the date and place beforehand. The fact that this man will know the date, time, and method of his own death, that it will be brought about in a clinical matter, and that we as a society condone it and even pay for it is what I find barbaric.

 

So far there have been 21 responses to my question. As far as I can tell, only 2 were downright supporters of the death penalty. Of the 19 others, 12 were strongly opposed and 7 seemed to support it in principle, but oppose the actual implementation of it in practice due to the not insignificant chance that innocent people may be wrongly put to death. It's interesting to me that the support for the death penalty is so much stronger among the Christians that I work with than among a group of ex-Christians. I don't understand Southern conservative Christians. They are strong supporters of the death penalty and war (at least against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan) but fervent opponents of abortion and assisted suicide.

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I don't understand Southern conservative Christians. They are strong supporters of the death penalty and war (at least against Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan) but fervent opponents of abortion and assisted suicide.

The Explanation:

 

"Kill them all. Let God sort them out. If we made a mistake, it's instant paradise forever, and that should make up for dying. If we're right, he's going where he deserves, and the sooner the better since torture is immoral - for us."

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support for the death penalty is so much stronger among the Christians that I work with

Their god invented the death penalty and uses it to the extreme. They want to be like their deity and they also want to carry out his holy mission of death. The wages of sin is death, and few Christians take the allegorical meaning.

 

A government sanctioned death penalty is purely about revenge, and I think most would agree that is one of the baser motivations for human endeavor. Still, most people at times feel that urge and want what they see as justice to be done, even at the expense of some of their own humanity. We're still evolving.

 

Still, it's too final a decision to entrust to a corrupt and often incompetent system.

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Not looking for an argument here, BO- just a question. Seeings how you and I have similar opinions on the police- wouldn't this also extend to the 'justice' system? You know as well as I do how corrupt and downright predatory our 'justice' system can be- why would you trust it to determine life and death?

 

Isker...

 

There is a role for the police. There is a proper role for government and the court system (MUCH SMALLER THAN IT IS NOW). In my estimation, if corruption was found for the execution of an innocent man, the individuals responsible for suppressing evidence that would have found such a person innocent, they then should face the death penalty because in my mind, that is attempted murder by manipulation of the system. They were in effect using the system as a murder weapon.

 

 

You make some pretty interesting arguments on this Steve. I'm not quite sure I agree, but the arguments are very interesting.

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Not looking for an argument here, BO- just a question. Seeings how you and I have similar opinions on the police- wouldn't this also extend to the 'justice' system? You know as well as I do how corrupt and downright predatory our 'justice' system can be- why would you trust it to determine life and death?

 

Isker...

 

There is a role for the police. There is a proper role for government and the court system (MUCH SMALLER THAN IT IS NOW). In my estimation, if corruption was found for the execution of an innocent man, the individuals responsible for suppressing evidence that would have found such a person innocent, they then should face the death penalty because in my mind, that is attempted murder by manipulation of the system. They were in effect using the system as a murder weapon.

And, if it is then later found that the court officers or those offering purjured testimony were framed, then those framers would be executed, and so on.

 

It reminds me of vigilantiism. Kill the first guy they arrest, then the second guy, then the third guy, until they stop arresting people.

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Not looking for an argument here, BO- just a question. Seeings how you and I have similar opinions on the police- wouldn't this also extend to the 'justice' system? You know as well as I do how corrupt and downright predatory our 'justice' system can be- why would you trust it to determine life and death?

 

Isker...

 

There is a role for the police. There is a proper role for government and the court system (MUCH SMALLER THAN IT IS NOW). In my estimation, if corruption was found for the execution of an innocent man, the individuals responsible for suppressing evidence that would have found such a person innocent, they then should face the death penalty because in my mind, that is attempted murder by manipulation of the system. They were in effect using the system as a murder weapon.

 

Well that's all fine and good as a fantasy- but we all know that's never gonna happen. The justice system is corrupt and fallible. Innocent people are convicted ALL THE TIME- and prosecutors, judges, cops, etc. are RARELY given more than a slap on the wrist. So how can you trust this system and these people to decide who lives or dies?

 

I mean hell, I'm right with you in that I agree that some people just need killin'. And if I had any confidence AT ALL in our justice system, then I just might support killin' them. But I don't. So I can't support the DP under our current system.

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My views only slightly changed due to seeing more and more cases of innocent people being convicted in court on faulty evidence. My view is, we constantly euthanize animals if they cannot be rehabilitated, so we should do the same for our own species, but since the American penal system is more focused on punishment rather than rehabilitation, finding out if someone can be rehabilitated is somewhat hindered.

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I am for the death penalty in principle. You commit a crime like raping, torturing, and killing somebody, you should die. You break into someone's home and kill a family in the process, you should die. You are beyond rehabilitation at that point.

 

However, the implementation is deeply flawed. Where I live, the DNA labs have been proven to fuck things up, resulting in wrong conclusions. If you could guarantee me that the person was 100% guilty, I would have no problem with it. But due to the proven errors with testimony and evidence, I must practically be against it (this is BTW, the same thing I would tell a judge if I ever got called for jury duty.)

 

You and me are on the same page.

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I understand that everyone may not understand my philosophy, but I believe the way we treat our fellow human beings reflects on ourselves, and if we can lock up a dangerous man up instead of ending his life out of anger, then I feel that that is a celebration of humanity.

I agree with your views on this. I was always against the death penalty, even when I was a Christian. I never understood why all the other Christians at my parents' church supported it because to me, Jesus made it clear we should be against it when he said to love your enemies and turn the other cheek instead of an eye for an eye. I'm still against the death penalty now as an ex-Christian. There's the practical reasons others have listed and the possibility of accidentally executing a falsely accused person is too great of a risk, but I also agree with you that using the death penalty doesn't make us any better than the murderer themselves. Why is it considered justified by our society to pay the murderer back with the same action they did but we would consider it barbaric if we decided to punish people by raping them? If someone would be against raping people to punish them, why is the death penalty justified?
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Why is it considered justified by our society to pay the murderer back with the same action they did but we would consider it barbaric if we decided to punish people by raping them? If someone would be against raping people to punish them, why is the death penalty justified?

 

I like this argument. I wonder what my fellow Tennessee Baptists would say about this? I'll try to find out.

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I think I was pro death penalty before my deconversion, I still am, probably even more so than ever after deconverting.

 

Reason is back in my catholic days I honestly believed in hell. When we would hear news of a clearly guilty people getting away or crimes unsolved (let me bring up I lived in El Salvador and there justice goes to the highest bidder) my grandmother used to have a saying: "The devil is patient. He'll wait as long as he needs to."

I used to take a lot of comfort from that - that in the end god would judge them when we couldn't. I'll admit its one of the few things that makes me miss being an xtian.

 

So I'm quite for the death penalty now. I do believe the laws around it need to be reviwed (ridiculous numbers of appeals for clearly guilty scumbags, cases based on circumstantial evidence should not have the DP, old cases without DNA, etc). But today we have the ability to convict for crimes with a certainty never available before, and its only getting better. It should be the heyday of the death penalty, not the end of it.

 

Retribution/revenge is an essential part of the concept of justice. We feel empathy for the victims of crime, and part of that empathy is the feeling of wanting to avenge them.

 

Some of my favorite sayings on the subject:

"Our sense of revenge is as exact as our mathematical faculty, and until both terms of the equations are satisfied we can not get over the sense of something left undone."

- Inazo Nitobe, Bushido

 

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

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But how do you know who is going to change? And how do you decide who is sincere and who is not? And if they have truly changed, should their death sentence be reduced to life in prison? I think in Tucker's case, it should have been.

 

Sorry, I'm just rambling...

How do you really know who has changed?

 

What if Tucker had, as she was being strapped into the gurney, screamed out, "Well, if you don't give a shit about my fucking conversion, then fuck you all!"

 

Maybe they injected the drugs before she could get that out.

 

Ok, maybe not. The point is that child rapists and murderers can be repentent, sorrowful, and claim to have been transformed (by Bubba or the Holy Spirit). That doesn't mean that they won't do it again.

 

A person capable of dastardly acts is a person that society cannot trust. There is some inherent defect; a bad mutation; bad seed.

 

Ultimately, I have no problem with life imprisonment for those crimes that are abhorrent and reveal some loose screw that can never be tightened so that it won't become unscrewed. Take the guy that killed his wife and two children by strangulation so he could be with his girlfriend. Would you want him to run a day care? He has a screw loose, and I don't care how repentent he is, I wouldn't believe him. He worked for Joyce Myers Ministries, so clearly religious belief is not the answer for him (unless he wasn't a True BelieverTM...).

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I have always been a pro-ponent of the death penalty, but as I've gotten older, I have narrowed my acceptance of it. I am a supporter of The Innocence Project & believe that only those who have been proven (with DNA & other hard evidence) responsible, should be put to death. I don't believe the death penalty should be applied in all cases, but Ted Bundy (for example) definitely deserved it. He was linked by bite mark evidence to one of his victims & let's face it, he would never have stopped killing. Not ever.

 

BYD

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I have always been a pro-ponent of the death penalty, but as I've gotten older, I have narrowed my acceptance of it. I am a supporter of The Innocence Project & believe that only those who have been proven (with DNA & other hard evidence) responsible, should be put to death. I don't believe the death penalty should be applied in all cases, but Ted Bundy (for example) definitely deserved it. He was linked by bite mark evidence to one of his victims & let's face it, he would never have stopped killing. Not ever.

 

BYD

We trust DNA evidence, but even that can be incorrect. Not the science, but the people that use the science.

 

"Framing" and the opposite are still possible. OJ claims he was framed and the DNA evidence was "tainted." I know of a case where a woman was raped, the DNA matched a guy already in prison for rape. Turns out he had his girlfriend get another woman to put his semen in her vagina and claim to be raped. Didn't work.

 

Consider if a man rapes and kills deliberately and planned ahead by getting some used condom (yuck) to take with him and implant the DNA into the deceased woman's vagina (having used a condom). Such confusion could screw up the system, and perhaps even get an innocent man convicted.

 

Bite mark evidence is not good enough for the death penalty. Too much subjectivity and too many false positives - even when the evidence seems clear.

 

Was Bundy guilty? Yes, without a doubt. But not for any particular bit of forensic evidence.

 

Gaming the system will be our next big challenge. We trust DNA too much.

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"Catch and Release" has worked so well for the uS JustUs system....

 

Just this past week for the newshawkers and watchers several folks, all "hard criminals", even by our warm and soft "reformation" thinkers, were caught again raping then murdering.

Turned loose from custody after having been shown to be "evil actors".

 

Say what you will. A dead rapist or murderer will never do their crimes again.

 

"Give them a fair trial, best to State's ability to prosecute to "no doubts", then remove the killers from society." "

 

That or be totally dependent on the State 24/7 for 911 and radio cars.... Oh wait, nevermind.

 

"Somehow it is more politically expedient to have a woman raped and strangled with her pantyhose; than standing over the smoking body of her attacker, 38 in hand, asking loudly "HOW DO I RELOAD THIS SON OF A BITCH?".

 

Self protection is the ultimate Civil Right.

 

kL

 

kFL

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I still think Bertrand Russell makes one of the best criticisms of our criminal justice system in his essay, What I Believe.

One other aspect in which our society suffers from the theological conception of "sin" is the treatment of criminals. Te view that criminals are "wicked" and "deserve" punishment is not one which a rational morality can support. Undoubtedly certain people do things which society wishes to prevent and does right in preventing as far as possible. We may take murder as the plainest case. Obviously, if a community is to hold together and we are to enjoy its pleasure and advantages, we cannot allow people to kill each other whenever they feel the impulse to do so. But this problem should be treated in a purely scientific spirit. We should ask simply: What is the best method of preventing murder? Of two methods which are equally effective in preventing murder, the one involving the lest harm to the murderer is to be preferred. The harm to the murderer is wholly regrettable, like the pain of a surgical operation. It may be equally necessary, but it is not a subject for rejoicing. The vindictive feeling called "moral indignation" is merely a form of cruelty. Suffering to the criminal can never be justified by the notion of vindictive punishment.

 

If education combined with kindness is equally effective, it is preferred; still more is it to be preferred if it is more effective. Of course the prevention of crime and the punishment of crime are two different questions,; the object of causing pain and to the criminal is presumably deterrent. If prisons were so humanized that a prisoner got a good education for nothing, people might commit crimes in order to qualify for entrance. No doubt prison must be less pleasant than freedom; but the best way to secure this result is to make freedom more pleasant than it sometimes is at present. I do not wish, however, to embark upon the subject of penal reform. I merely wish to suggest that we should treat the criminal as we treat a man suffering from plague. Each is a public danger, each must have his liberty curtailed until he has ceased to be a danger. But the man suffering from plague is an object of sympathy and commiseration, whereas the criminal is an object of execration. This is quite irrational. And it is because of this difference of attitude that our prisons are so much less successful in curing criminal tendencies than our hospitals in curing disease.

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In principle I have always been for the death penalty - in practice, very much against it. Our justice system is a complete waste IMO - innocents get convicted, while repeat offenders are busy walking the streets repeating again. Having something as extreme as the death penalty in such a flawed system is just asking for trouble.

 

Then again, I'm also for harsher punishments and prisons for those who HAVE committed "real" crimes (I mean ones that actually affect other people, not a lot of the petty crap that floods our courts) - and make it a lot less "fun" for them to get tossed into jail. Reduce the laws on the books down to the ones that matter, enforce those more thoroughly, and actually let people work out their own problems a little more. As long as we're relying on big brother to take care of every little disagreement or issue, there will always be those willing to walk all over us.

 

I believe it was China that at one time - or so I was told - (long before communism) reduced their enforced criminal laws down to a small handful - and they had strict punishments for those few, but all the petty stuff was no longer under governmental control. Their crime rates dropped significantly as the populace learned to handle their own problems and the petty criminals learned it just wasn't as much fun as it once had been. The next ruler went back to micromanaging the populace, and this was a short lived time. I have no idea if this was true or not, haven't verified it myself, but it's an interesting concept none the less.

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The philosophical part of me is against it; but the male barbarian part of me is for it; and spiritually I'm sort of caught in the balance.

 

How can I deny it, when I think about someone hurting and killing a loved one. I'd blowtorch them and then put a round through their brain stem, no problem. But I'd have to know they're guilty. 100 percent. I think that our modern justice system can establish that in a lot of cases.

 

On the other hand, the idea of the State being able to kill citizens bothers me a little. When I hear some ultra-rightists talking about the death penalty for "drug dealers" ; separate from any actual overt act of murder, then it gets a little scary.

 

You know, I saw that video on Utube when Saddam got dropped. I thought it would be cathartic. He was an evil mother, and I know what he did to the Kurds, and other people, even outside of any propoganda. Yet, when I watched that video, I was glad he was dead, but I didn't feel joyous, or going out and singing a song. Just felt sick inside. Maybe I'm just a pansy, or that's my inner humanity reacting.

 

Whatever.

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I've always been against it. My family is for it, but i could never justify their thinking in my mind. One, how does killing someone for killing others teach them anything? I think they would learn much more by a life in prison or some other form of punishment. Two, I always had this nagging fear that if they convicted the wrong person than they were killing someone innocent of the crimes they were now being killed for. Ultimately though, it just doesn't seem to do justice to the crimes the person committed by killing them.

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I've always been against it. My family is for it, but i could never justify their thinking in my mind. One, how does killing someone for killing others teach them anything? I think they would learn much more by a life in prison or some other form of punishment. Two, I always had this nagging fear that if they convicted the wrong person than they were killing someone innocent of the crimes they were now being killed for. Ultimately though, it just doesn't seem to do justice to the crimes the person committed by killing them.

The goal of the death penalty is two-fold: Eliminate the risk of recidivism and deter future crimes. The unstated goal is vengeance.

 

Teaching the criminal is pretty far from the minds of those that advocate the death penalty.

 

The main questions for opponents and proponents is, does the death penalty achieve the goals in a reasonable, fair and humane manner? If they are dying of old age on death row, I'd say that it isn't much different from life imprisonment.

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The goal of the death penalty is two-fold: Eliminate the risk of recidivism and deter future crimes. The unstated goal is vengeance.

 

And it fails on both fronts. It doesn't deter future crimes and life in prison is much, much cheaper than the death penalty.

 

Personally I think the only reason it exists is because of a visceral response amongst large groups of voters.

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And it fails on both fronts. It doesn't deter future crimes and life in prison is much, much cheaper than the death penalty.

 

I actually tend to think that simple death by firing squad, no cameras, no publicity, no media, no nothing, would actually be a lot more compassionate than life in the prison system. I think that the death penalty should be done away with, except as an option really. There would always be that option there for the criminal if he couldn't deal with the prison system or solitary confinement within it even. He would always have that out, a quiet out with no publicity. To me that would be the most compassionate setup... I don't think the prison system is more compassionate than simple execution if we are talking terms greater than 15 years, I think it, as it currently exists, is far far less compassionate and humane. And if you are talking about solitary confinement? Well that has been scientificlly proven (recently) to be a form of torture, so I think it goes without saying that I think simple execution by firing squad, as a death penalty option, would be far more compassionate than torturing someone.

 

Finally, and in all honesty, I see being on death row itself as more humane than being in the general population.

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I still think Bertrand Russell makes one of the best criticisms of our criminal justice system in his essay, What I Believe.

One other aspect in which our society suffers from the theological conception of "sin" is the treatment of criminals. Te view that criminals are "wicked" and "deserve" punishment is not one which a rational morality can support. Undoubtedly certain people do things which society wishes to prevent and does right in preventing as far as possible. We may take murder as the plainest case. Obviously, if a community is to hold together and we are to enjoy its pleasure and advantages, we cannot allow people to kill each other whenever they feel the impulse to do so. But this problem should be treated in a purely scientific spirit. We should ask simply: What is the best method of preventing murder? Of two methods which are equally effective in preventing murder, the one involving the lest harm to the murderer is to be preferred. The harm to the murderer is wholly regrettable, like the pain of a surgical operation. It may be equally necessary, but it is not a subject for rejoicing. The vindictive feeling called "moral indignation" is merely a form of cruelty. Suffering to the criminal can never be justified by the notion of vindictive punishment.

 

If education combined with kindness is equally effective, it is preferred; still more is it to be preferred if it is more effective. Of course the prevention of crime and the punishment of crime are two different questions,; the object of causing pain and to the criminal is presumably deterrent. If prisons were so humanized that a prisoner got a good education for nothing, people might commit crimes in order to qualify for entrance. No doubt prison must be less pleasant than freedom; but the best way to secure this result is to make freedom more pleasant than it sometimes is at present. I do not wish, however, to embark upon the subject of penal reform. I merely wish to suggest that we should treat the criminal as we treat a man suffering from plague. Each is a public danger, each must have his liberty curtailed until he has ceased to be a danger. But the man suffering from plague is an object of sympathy and commiseration, whereas the criminal is an object of execration. This is quite irrational. And it is because of this difference of attitude that our prisons are so much less successful in curing criminal tendencies than our hospitals in curing disease.

 

 

That just sounds really, really, creepy in a "Clockwork Orange" kind of way.... /me shudders. Now, I like Bertrand Russell, but I disagree with him on these sentiments, wholeheartedly in fact.

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I didn't find anything creepy about Russell's essay, but then I've never seen A Clockwork Orange. What I understood from it is that Russell is arguing that we need to make society a better place so that criminals won't have any reason to commit a crime in the first place. But if they do commit a crime, we should treat criminals in a way where we're trying to improve their behaviors, not as a system of vengenance like the fundamentalist Christian mindset treats sinners. Basically, he's saying our goal should be to protect us from harm in the most effective way possible, not to seek vengenance, is what I got out of the essay.

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