Should The U.S. Abolish the Death Penalty ?

reply to post by elevatedone


Tough call... Some of the people on death row knew the crimes they were comitting could result in that sentence, yet they chose to go forward anyways, so I cant say it really serrves as a deterant.

On the other side of the coin we have had innocent people put to death because of errors.

I think if it stays it should be uniform from state to state as well as federal government.

If we keep it, and someone is convicted and sentenced to death, then ALL available means should be used to ensure that person is in fact the person who committed the crime. Requiring the use of DNA testing etc should be mandatory, and the state should be required to pay for that since its incumbent upon them to make their case.

If a person is found not guilty - any DNA evidence taken should be required to be wiped from the databanks.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Again, good points.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

If you have it, use it, immediately, don't wait.

If you don't have it, then, why are we even having this discussion.

heck, I dunno....

Because that is not how our criminal justice system is organized?

People on death row were already tried in front of a jury of their peers and have been "convicted beyond reasonable doubt."

And yet -- more then 200 have been exonerated by DNA evidence since the late 90's.

We convict people "beyond a reasonable doubt" all the time. And we are still wrong. A lot.

Originally posted by elevatedone
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Again, good points.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

If you have it, use it, immediately, don't wait.

If you don't have it, then, why are we even having this discussion.

heck, I dunno....

Respectfully, hastening the process will only ensure innocents are executed, and of course fast or slow, assures the murder of all executed, innocent or guilty. Arguing we should speed up a process of execution in light of the fact that had some People not had the time to exonerate themselves and prove their innocence, they would have been executed in the speedy manner of which you desire is a dangerous argument. It is a strange logic, this notion that one would lament a system is not perfect, and hope to distance oneself from the advocacy of state sanctioned murder by arguing this is the system we have in place...and by the way, since it is in place, why not let's just get right down to it and kill them straight away?

Maybe a bullet could be shot between their eyes directly after the murder verdict has been rendered, would that be fast enough for you?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Sure, take'em out back the courthouse and "let'em have it", why not.

Originally posted by elevatedone
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

Sure, take'em out back the courthouse and "let'em have it", why not.

Why not, indeed. If we are going to be ritualistic primitives, salivating at the idea of revenge killings, why put on any airs of propriety at all? After all, all the appeals process and other checks and balances put in place are just fancy dressing to disguise our preference for revenge over justice. Why keep pretending any longer? Why not just own up to our savagery and be proud of it?

which one?

capital punishment or abortion

capital punishment the person have been found guilty and convicted by a jury of their peers

abortion well.....

people are walking a fine line there.

reply to post by elevatedone


The U.S. does not impose a death penalty. A state imposes the death penalty. The U.S. government cannot and does not involve it's self in death penalty sentences. It's left up to the states and it's a power that the federal government cannot infringe on. Or at least has not infringed on. The only federal law that could impose the death penalty is treason. And I don't think it's been tested for the last 30-40 years. If someone commits treason and the sentence is death, you can bet a big media circus will occur. Like the OJ trial or Michael Jacksons pedophilia case. If that happens you can bet the death sentence will be commuted.

Wow it's not suprising to see many prmitive ATS'ers seem to still be living in the Dark Ages. Next we will be hanging women for being witches and hunting down Jews because they charge us interest.

It should be abolished, because of the possibility of wrongful execution. Just imagine yourself being dealt a death sentence for a crime you did not commit. If this situation were to be displeasing to you then you should also advocate abolishing the death penalty.

reply to post by elevatedone


I am torn on this b/c on one hand we have killed many people that later turned out to be innocent later, but we will let rapists and pedophiles out repeatedly. To me this show a blatant flaw in the system as a whole. IMO if a sex offender can be "rehabilitated" so can a murder. Maybe the death should only be used for the most extreme murder cases and treason of course.

I find the death penalty to be absoluletly sick. How can you take away someone's life whilst protesting that taking life is murder. I actually can't believe that exectutions are still held in 2011. What of the cases like Troy Davis, he may have been murdered by his own state, and "we" the people had no say in it. Don't you think thats very dangerous.

Americans you already have you're police killing you, they get a slap on the wrist, you kill them, then your life is taken without thought.

But keep putting the power into their hands, and hope the day doesn't come when you are wrongfully accused and your time is ticking and death gets closer. What a state of torture, what good does it do. It basically says people can't be rehabilitated and that life is only precious depending on who you are. For a religious country America is just one big hypocrit, I thought only god could give and take life.

Blood Lust

How far back in human culture do you suppose it goes?

And who has it always served the best?

Leaders who wanted to hide something.

It's a short-term fix. If the target knows too much, it stops him talking. It doesn't erase what he knows, but it usually installs an amnesia screen. So of all the uses for state murder, I think the use of it against people who know too much is the most effective.

Have you noticed how many people who go on homicidal rampages usually also kill themselves? That's typical of someone who suffers a psychotic break.

On the other hand, programmed killers often survive, then disappear into mental hospitals.

So who does that leave to actually be killed in prison? Probably mostly people who did something very bad and then managed to get themselves caught, and people who were framed. These are probably the people who are most likely to benefit from being kept alive.

If you are crazy, killing you will not make you sane. So you just come back and do it again.

If you are sane, killing you might help you decide to do something crazy when you come back. But mostly it just terrorizes your friends and family who survive you.

Is death really a punishment? It hurts really bad for as long as it takes to die. Then it's over. The being eventually comes back, with some vague sense of having lost even more control over his life, and dreams up a new dramatization.

If you really want to punish someone, isolate him. Give him nothing productive to do, no one to interact with. That's punishment for all but the totally insane. And they rarely show up in prison.

Want to rehabilitate him? Then don't punish him! As soon as you do you've given him the perfect excuse to go out and commit another crime.

Punishment is for psychopaths. They enjoy doing it to people. The rest of us should be able to come up with better ways to deal with these problems.

The cost ohhh the cost of imprisonment. Lol while millions are imprisoned for an ounce of weed some here blather about holding a violent criminal in jail for life. Read and get it through your Neanderthal skulls, a civilized society cannot punish a criminal by committing the same crime. Sure, as an individual I'd love to eliminate child rapists with my own hands BUT society must go beyond instinct and impulse. It's called JUSTICE. If murderers are to be murdered then who murders the executioner and judge+jury who ordered this? And then who murders THAT murderer and so on. You get this? Justice must be blind for it to remain just, but in a criminal nation how can we ask for fair laws and a fair trial? I swear some responses to this thread belong in the goddamned middle ages.

Weirdly in the news today...

www.bbc.co.uk...

God bless America

I've always thought people in favour of the death penalty possess a remarkable amount of trust in the police and in the machinery of justice.

It must be nice to live in a world where you have absolute faith that the police are fine upstanding fellow, and the law always metes out fair justice.

Personally I think the police are pretty damned corrupt, and the thought of even just one innocent person being executed by the state, makes of us all, murderers. And that's an unnacceptable price to pay.

Plus, there isn't the slightest piece of evidence that suggests the death penalty actually deters crime.

No of course no one should be executed. Anyone that thinks otherwise is actually wrong. I don't think it's an opinion matter.

It's homicide through and through. Consider it akin to a gang killing someone for killing someone. It's revenge killing.

It's part of that list of what's wrong with America that a lot of conservatives cling to. Kill people for killing people, no healthcare, no right to choose, the poor allowing voting for the rich to get richer just because they parade around as religious, the list goes on. Other European countries that actually give rehabilitation a shot generally succeed. We don't do that here, our prison system is a joke. Execution is bred not from criminals committing crimes but out of a failed disciplinary system that leaves it as a last resort (never trying the first).

reply to post by elevatedone


No, in fact it should be used more often. I also think that if someone is sentenced to death that it should be carried out almost immediately, say within a month. I'm tired of someone getting the death penalty only for the sentence to be carried out 18 years later. Do it like China... If found guilty and sentenced to death, you're taken into the next room and shot, and then the cost of the bullet is charged to the family. That is about the only thing China does that I agree with.

reply to post by elevatedone


The death penalty is barbaric, backward, hypocritical, unforgiving, vengeful, proven to be wrong on many occasions and tantamount to cruel and unusual torture.

Anybody who upholds and perpetuates this crime against humanity is a despicable human being whom I liken more to an animal than a person. Those people are no better than the murderer themselves. My only hope is that, in whatever afterlife one believes in, they roast slowly in it for eternity.

I detest the death penalty, and those who uphold it, with all my being.

Abolish it?
Hell no more states should enforce it.
Im tired of having to pay to keep the murderers and pedofiles and the like in prison. Besides the ones that do end up on death row ususally stay there for a couple of years while more money is wasted in the coursts and legal system. i say take the sick F%^&s out behind the barn and send them off old yeller style. For the really big crimes, PUBLIC HANGINGS!

If you are for the death penalty I assume you would also be happy being the one administering the sentence, whether that be frying a fellow human in a chair or injecting a fellow human with a poison to kill them. How would that make you feel. Doing that as your job? It ends up barbarising more than just the guilty party.