Death Penalty

Originally posted by yerssot
that's why you have maximum secured prisons... you make sure that those that are in for a heavy crime can't get out.

But when you kill them, they have no chance to ever get free. In prison they have at least one thing that is important to them: hope.
Shooting them down just because they are accused of something bad, is something that has been done in what the people call "the dark ages", people have fought long and hard to get away form this

People can/have escaped from maximum security prisons, there is always a possibility, and it does happen.

They aren't just accused, they're conficted, they're found guilty of the crime. There is evidence that they did it. It's not just "oh, this guy looks kinda bad, he did it, okay kill him now". They go through many steps to do everything they can to make sure they aren't killing innocent people. Of course, mistakes are made, which is, again, a fault in the court system.

Which does, of course, result in some innocent men being killed for all eternity.

So until we have a perfect court system, I think it's quite sensible not to go killing people.

-AC

Against. No one should be made to die.

As I said, either way, innocent people will die, either through execution gone wrong, or because a murderer will escape from prison and kill people while he's out (it happens, more then you may think).

So, again, it depends on how you want them to die. Through a painless lethal injection, or being murdered in their house by a murderer.

The thing is that whether the death penalty exist or not there is always going to be a crime happening. You can throw me all the statics between countries that practice capital punishment and those that don't. Eventually a murder is going to pop out somewhere. Crime knows NO nationality or culture.

I personally agree with the death penalty only when the crime is too large. Don't expect me to accept that just because some guy went looney and goes on killing spree he should be thrown in prison for the rest of his life. Or should be given to a mental facility. That's BS! Fry the bastard. Anyways, these are redundant (sp?) discussions so to each his own.

Originally posted by BackFire
People can/have escaped from maximum security prisons, there is always a possibility, and it does happen.

They aren't just accused, they're conficted, they're found guilty of the crime. There is evidence that they did it. It's not just "oh, this guy looks kinda bad, he did it, okay kill him now". They go through many steps to do everything they can to make sure they aren't killing innocent people. Of course, mistakes are made, which is, again, a fault in the court system.

and because there is an errormargin, you can't afford to murder innocents. life is and should be valued higher than a feeling of false safety

Well, no prison is perfect, even the most maximum security prison won't be perfect, simply because humanity is incapable of perfection.

The same goes for wrongful deaths in execution.

Either way, mistakes will get made, and people will die because of them.

But, reguardless, as WD said, these discussions become redundant. And the only reason I stepped in is because you tried to equate an executioner to a serial killer, which is a flawed comparison.

Originally posted by BackFire
So, again, it depends on how you want them to die. Through a painless lethal injection, or being murdered in their house by a murderer.

One is certain death of a possible innocent man, one is a possibility of an innocent man getting hurt or worse.

It's not fact that he'll go out and say "Hahaha murder! Love all this murder."

Question: If a man fried another man in his house for committing a death penalty-worthy crime, would that be right?

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
One is certain death of a possible innocent man, one is a possibility of an innocent man getting hurt or worse.

It's not fact that he'll go out and say "Hahaha murder! Love all this murder."

Question: If a man fried another man in his house for committing a death penalty-worthy crime, would that be right?

-AC

Both cases do happen, they're both theoretical, but at the same, time, they both do happen.

To answer your question. No, taking justice into ones own hands will only cause more problems.

So why do the guys flipping the switches get the right to do it? No different to you or I. Humans.

Why are they allowed? Both are executing criminals. Why is the guy wrong and the death row executioners, right?

-AC

Because it takes place after a court trial, with an impartial jury, a judge to over see it's validity, and with the governments approval.

A guy killing somone in his living room is not.

Even liberals have to agree prisoners offer little contribution to society, at best they can be used for hard labour. And even then, this would lose it's value if there's tens of thousands of prisoners..

Therfore, someone, somewhere has to die. Sacrifices have to be made. Equivalent exchange. And if we're going to kill anyone, inorder to balance the eco-system and our budgets, it may as well be heartless rapists and murderers..

Originally posted by BackFire
Because it takes place after a court trial, with an impartial jury, a judge to over see it's validity, and with the governments approval.

A guy killing somone in his living room is not.

A jury is very often not impartial. I know many lawyers and many people who have taken jury service and it's more or less common knowledge that a lot of the people on jurys can be swayed by the nature of the case. Because it is random people, and random people could have any kind of opinion. If a guy is up for child molestation and he didn't do it, there'll always be some morons condemning him from the start.

Government's approval? Exactly. They're just humans. Who gives them the right to choose who dies? It's no different than a guy deciding to do it, if we're being technical.

-AC

Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
A jury is very often not impartial. I know many lawyers and many people who have taken jury service and it's more or less common knowledge that a lot of the people on jurys can be swayed by the nature of the case. Because it is random people, and random people could have any kind of opinion. If a guy is up for child molestation and he didn't do it, there'll always be some morons condemning him from the start.

Government's approval? Exactly. They're just humans. Who gives them the right to choose who dies? It's no different than a guy deciding to do it, if we're being technical.

-AC

Until someone invents perfect robot jury's, it's the best we're going to get. The lawyers do everything they can do get the jury to be as even handed and impartial as possible.

The government technically does have the right to decide things like the death penalty. We, as society, give them the right. The government is a group of people who elect to, more or less, decide what is good for us as a nation and as a people, if they have the power to go to war and kill thousands of people, then they have the power to decide if killing a convicted murderer in a very humane fassion is legal or illegal. Who gives them the right? The people do, the people vote for such issues.

Again, the man killing someone in his living room is in no way a reasonable or valid comparison to a government sanctioned execution, he has no juristiction over what is and isn't legal, no one has given him that power, and is himself commiting an illegal act by taking justice into his own hands.

The government has the right to do such things based on the feelings of the people in the nation they govern, the whacky man in the living room cooking someone else, does not.

Well it's not as clear cut as us deciding we trust them and they get elected is it? Otherwise politicians and governments wouldn't be half as distrusted and hated as they are. It's also not "we". I don't give them the right, nor do I believe they should have it.

You keep saying it's unsanctioned and that he has no right, but neither do the government. Through awkward technicalities they are given it, but they shouldn't. They take justice into their own hands, sure. Lock the guy away. Make sure life imprisonment means life imprisonment, don't kill the man.

The whacky man governs himself and only himself, doesn't he? It's a lot better than a government being given the right to kill by some of the people in the nation is governs.

-AC

Again, we (we = people) give them the right or don't give them the right, we vote on the issue. The government doesn't just say "I think we should kill people now, let's do it". It's voted on, for every state, and some states allow it, others don't. The majority wins.

The government in the states that allow capital punishment certainly have the right, because it's given to them by the majority of the people in how they voted on the issue, just like every issue. Whether or not they "should" or "shouldn't" is a matter of opinion and nothing more, which is why the discussion gets so redundant so fast, and it's also why different states have different legalities when it comes to the death penalty.

The whacky man doesn't just govern himself, obviously, he's killing someone else in a manner that's blatantly and factually illegal in this country. If everyone just governed themselves and was allowed to kill whoever they felt without a court system, the world would be in total chaos.

In my personal opinion, the death penalty should only be used in the most extreme, and horrific cases, and then ONLY when it can be factually shown that the convicted man did it. It's used to leniantly in it's current form, which is why all the mistakes happen. It should only be used as a final resort, if someone is truly too dangerous to live, and if he ever does get out, he will kill no matter what. An execution should happen very very VERY rarely, if ever. But I still think the option should ramain.

Well we agree for the most part.

I think if there's no getting rid of it worldwide, it should only be used in ways you mentioned. But even then I just don't believe that any human has that right above anyone else. Maybe because I actually think about what it means to be killed.

I consider myself quite spiritual, I have my beliefs but to deny someone life for all eternity, officially, just disgusts me. Though I do believe it should be abolished.

If life meant life, death penalties wouldn't be needed. They're essentially for self satisfaction and sweeping it under the rug. "Our prison system sucks so rather fixing it, let's just kill this guy so he can't reoffend and show how bad we're doing at our jobs."

-AC

I'd be fine for getting rid of it if it could be garanteed 100% that a horrible, dangerous man would have zero chance of ever getting out of prison. Though, since that's an impossiblity...well, you know.

Originally posted by Fishy
Unlike some other people

Let's see how much liberals think the rest of the world is better then the U.S. when they have to make ends meat south of the border.. - Spelljammer

Well, I can't disagree too much with your plan. I hear Canada has plenty of room. - Feceman

Or I could have just bullshitted all of you and said something about mistaking Spelljammer's meaning as an idiom. Or I could have said that I believed Spelljammer had used the term generally, meaning anywhere not in the United States.

But I'll just admit that I didn't read everything he wrote. I read about making ends 'meat' and got hungry for a sandwich.

If you give your government the right to execute - then with that right your government must bear responsibility that the right is not improperly exacted. 1:7 that's the ratio of people exonerated on death row to people executed, over the last 30 odd years in the U.S. There isn't certainty as to how many of those executed were actually innocent but legally guilty - I don't know the statistics or cases of posthumous exonerations - but even a 12.5% error rate to me seems too high.