This is why I'm for the death penalty.

[Bedreviter]

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and it sends a weird message ("listen children, its wrong to kill so sometimes when people do it we kill them")

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Yeah, just as it is hard to explain to kids that kidnapping is wrong, as "kidnappers who take the freedom away from other people will have their own freedom taken away from them by us/the government as we put them in prison for a certain period of time (usually far longer than the time the kidnapper took away the freedom of the kidnapee)"?

[Money2Burn]

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Anyone who has so little value for another human being's life does not deserve to live.

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Anyone?

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This is the important factor for me, not if a murder took place. To me, if a person shows so little respect for the value of another human being's life that he is willing to kill a person over something so insignificant then that person does not deserve to live himself.

[slickss]

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Yeah, just as it is hard to explain to kids that kidnapping is wrong, as "kidnappers who take the freedom away from other people will have their own freedom taken away from them by us/the government as we put them in prison for a certain period of time (usually far longer than the time the kidnapper took away the freedom of the kidnapee)"?

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You keep going back to this. How about this angle: "Listen kids, the man is dangerous to children and thus locked up so that he can't continue to do what he did."

Can we just establish that the death penalty is a lot more severe and, most importantly, irreversible than prison?

Some reaction is necessary, obviously. However, the question is death penalty or prison - not some punishment or nothing.

[DblBarrelJ]

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I'll repeat Midge's point: "Once you get wrongfully executed you won't be very active in trying to rectify the perception of your guilt or innocence either!"


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I have Midge on ignore so I dont see his posts, but I can answer this one since you brought it up.

This is not an argument against the death penalty. People who are against the death penalty love to bring this up, but the argument is about the legality/morality of a death penalty altogether. There are cases where there is zero doubt about the guilt of the defendent, and in some cases that guy will be executed. People like myself find that fair. That person cannot be executed if the death penalty is not in place, and that would suck imo.

People that are being executed in the US have gone through so many trials over so many years that it seems hugely unlikely that annyone innocent are being executed. That makes the "but what about the innocent people that are being executed?"-argument rather trivial.

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You forgot the point that it's a ridiculous point anyway. I've seen several stories about families who tried for years after the execution to prove the innocence of a loved one, only to end up ultimately proving an even more rock solid case against their loved one than the state did.

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Yes, they just had to wait for the right technology to come along. DNA forensic did and still does exonerate many wrongfully condemned to death, or long prison terms. But I do appreciate that a screw would usually not be technology literate.

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MidGe, are you honestly going to challenge my knowledge of forensics with your own? I'm not denying that DNA evidence has exonerated some innocent people, but you really need a reality check here.

Just for the record, there is alot of spin placed on many of these cases. The DNA is either there, or it isn't. If they say "The DNA 'cast's doubt as to the guilt' of the convicted" what they really mean is "The evidence was DNA tested after the fact, but the results were inconclusive." Sometimes it also means "DNA tests were attempted, but a sufficient sample did not exist".

These are just headlines by people who have moral objections to the death penalty. If real evidence existed, ten thousand defense attorneys would be jumping all over it, which is exactly what happens when hard DNA evidence actually does exonerate someone.

It's amazing what a little leftist spin can do for a story.

[Bedreviter]

Well as I see capital punishment as a harder/tougher form of punishment than say a prison sentence I dont know how it is possible for me to talk about this issue with you.

And until someone comes up with a time machine Im pretty sure serving time in prison is also irreversable.

[Bedreviter]

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Yeah, just as it is hard to explain to kids that kidnapping is wrong, as "kidnappers who take the freedom away from other people will have their own freedom taken away from them by us/the government as we put them in prison for a certain period of time (usually far longer than the time the kidnapper took away the freedom of the kidnapee)"?

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You keep going back to this. How about this angle: "Listen kids, the man is dangerous to children and thus locked up so that he can't continue to do what he did."

Can we just establish that the death penalty is a lot more severe and, most importantly, irreversible than prison?

Some reaction is necessary, obviously. However, the question is death penalty or prison - not some punishment or nothing.

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I think that was the first time I responded to the "you cannot tell someone that murder is wrong by killing them" with the "you cannot tell someone that taking peoples freedom away is wrong by taking their freedom away"-argument, so I fail to see how I "keep going back to this".

[Money2Burn]

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I'm against the death penalty, but wouldn't mind so much if the entire town of Gainesville was leveled... with extreme prejudice!

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No love for Title Town???? Please tell me you are from Ohio. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Money2Burn]

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Well, it's partly retribution, and part effeciency. If he gets sentance to the death penalty I don't see much reason to drag out his execution. It costs money that we shouldn't have to pay and allows him to live longer than he deserves imo.

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I think the 124 innocent Americans who were found innocent and released after receiving the death sentence strongly disagree.

As pointed out earlier in this thread, the X number of trials and tedious process of death row is very necessary if you're going to use the death penalty.

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This is true, I can agree that it would be prudent to allow some time for appeal or retrial if somethign nefarious went on during the first one.

[tame_deuces]

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and it sends a weird message ("listen children, its wrong to kill so sometimes when people do it we kill them")

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Yeah, just as it is hard to explain to kids that kidnapping is wrong, as "kidnappers who take the freedom away from other people will have their own freedom taken away from them by us/the government as we put them in prison for a certain period of time (usually far longer than the time the kidnapper took away the freedom of the kidnapee)"?

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Imprisonment and rehabilitory politics will actually keep a nice lid on crime rates, and as such are effective means of punishment (in some countries). I don't understand what you are trying to say. Do you really think imprisonment is based on "an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth principle"? If so you have misunderstood law.

[slickss]

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And until someone comes up with a time machine Im pretty sure serving time in prison is also irreversable.

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Obviously an inmate found innocent will never be able to get his X years of life back. However, he will get back to a somewhat normal life. If you're dead, it doesn't help you much.