Two Death Penalty Questiosns

[John Cole]

No.

[chrisnice]

[ QUOTE ]
No.

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fair enough, i probably wouldnt either.

[3for3]

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Re: Question two. A study done at Harvard found that the use of cell phones while driving increases productivity by 42 billion dollars a year; however, using cell phones while driving also results in the loss of 42 billion dollars a year as the result of death, injury, and property damage. Therefore, using cell phones while driving should not be a concern since it's not "worth it" to change the behavior.

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Surely this a great arguement for legislating for hands free sets to be compulsory in cars. You get all the benefits and non of the downs.

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That assumes that all of the downside of cell phones comes from actually holding the phone, rather than merely being distracted.

I can assure you this is not the case.

Danny

[Mike Z]

My view on the death penalty is the concept is fair. Do onto other as they would/have do/done on to you. That said, I think the problem is with how we determine guilt. At present there is no 100% way of determining guilt. Everything we do is based on a risk assessment. If we are to maintain a civilize race we need to hold people accountable for their action. When you are part of a society you are aware of the rules however imperfect they are.
To answer you question, as humanly close as possible to zero.

[craig]

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Today in Ontario it is being reported that a girl was murdered 15 years ago by someone who had murdered twice previously, and was released 12 years into a life sentence.

Ask the girl how she feels about the death sentence?

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How does that in anyway answer the question? I can't remember the name of the fallacy you are using, but I know it is one.

[scarr]

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I say do it like they do in China...take him behind the courthouse, shoot him in the back of the head, and send a bill for the bullet to his family.

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And as Dennis Miller said ... "do it before they finish forming the T sound in 'I did it!'.

No "beyond a reasonable doubt" is needed when there is a confession. Ironically, a confession can carry a lesser sentence, which is B.S. Also, a plea of insanity can get somone off of death row too. You have to be insane to kill someone knowing you could be killed for doing it. And if you have the capabilities to kill someone and your mentally unstable enough to do it, your ability to commit that crime should be taken away. Death may be harsh but effective, physically handicapping a mentally handicapped (insane) person might be more appropriate here.

As for the OP's question: "how many innocent people can be executed to justify the deterance aspect of the death penalty?"

Whether the deterrent aspect works because of the cost of committing the crime, or the fact that a dead person cannot kill, killing another human is not socially acceptable. Sure, we are killing another person when we execute someone, we are also killing someone else when we fight in a war.

If a group of peers decided that the accused was not justified in his actions, he is quilty. It takes a unanimous decision to convict in places where the death penalty is applied. It is a trust in the system, and it is not something you can put a number on. I trust that the system does not have any error. If it does, then it needs to be fixed. It isn't a matter of how much error we can tolerate.

[fyodor]

I never said I was answering the question. It was pretty obvious I was not.

But I will answer it here.

If it was proven that the death penalty was NOT a deterent to others I would still be in favour of it and would accept at least 1 innocent person being executed if 999 guilty persons were also executed. I would probably even go 5-995

If it was proven that it was a deterent I would go 5-995 for sure.

I think murderers should die. I have no interest in paying 10c to rehabiltate or permantly confine them. Just get rid of them.

That the odd innnocent will die is the cost of doing business.

[NutzyClutz]

For religious reasons, I am against death penalty.

In answer to your question, as close to zero as possible. IMHO the current judicial system meets this accuracy standard for sentences of life in prison, and that of death. However, many more minorities, IMHO, are prone to recieve the harsher sentence.

Why can't USA , who want to support civil rights worldwide, concede on this issue?

Another injustice, although I don't have facts, I would bet that many innocent people plead guilty to long sentences (say 20 years) when procescures say , "We will take the death penalty off the table", giving up their rights to a trial by jury.

[blackize]

Im way too lazy to read all of this thread so if this has been addressed please forgive me.

1) I could deal with 100% of all executions being innocent. The only other punishment than the death penalty for crimes that could warrant it is life in prison without parole.

Now if I were innocent and convicted of a crime for which the punishment was death or life in prison I would choose death. The likelihood of winning on appeal is miniscule, and I don't think that life in prison is a life worth living at all.

Edit: I believe that people sentenced to death row and executed who have been proven innocent either on appeal or after their deaths account for less than 1% of all death sentences. So if 1 person in 100 gets screwed out of a better life than he would have otherwise had, so be it.

[Dov]

I think the entire death penalty issue may be more easily understood by answering a question.

What would we do to a VICTIM who killed a person committing a crime for which we have a death penalty during the commission of the crime?

(Note that this would basically eliminate the error factor in your problem.)