Should The U.S. Abolish the Death Penalty ?

Also.. Texas just abolished.. the last meal choice that prisoners get before execution. After the most recent guy requested a huge meal and didn't eat any of it. One person acts up and everybody's gotta pay..

They said it's small in the face of death, but geeze you could also say IM FACING DEATH! I'd like to eat my favorite food one last time.

I don't know I guess I'm done here. Death penalty is a wicked thing. I can't believe the "christians," that aren't really christians if they support the death penalty have managed to shape the face of our country with religion yet allowed the death penalty to continue.

reply to post by KILL_DOGG


i totaly agree with you on that
and i think great briton(uk) should also bring back hanging or lethal
injection the crime rate should drop dramaticly
but i can only guess why this will not happen
and that is those that might get the death penalty might be in the govenment
maybe if the person who did the crime should be handed to those affected be the twat(sorry)

reply to post by CynicalDrivel


Stopping a murderer by murdering him. Don't play semantics. Your hypocrisy oozes out yet you continue to defend the indefensible.

let me reiterate my point here before I get crucified on ATS. All i'm saying is this:

1) the death penalty should stay the way it is

2) in the event that I seemed hypocritical in my pov of a "mistake" in an execution, consider the following; if a doctor is guilty of malpractice-should we stop medicine? If a building contractor's house falls down- should we stop erecting buildings? If a student doesnt learn in school do we shut them down?? the answer is NO.

Therefore, maybe instead of considering the ENTIRE system flawed, identify the problems with each case. States with the death penalty evoke a general deterrent for offenders committing capital crimes.

And with jury trials in these offenses, it is the JURY that determines guilt, not just one person or a crooked lawyer...it is everyday people. The judge will impose the death sentence. And don't you think if a case made it through an investigation, a grand jury, pre-trial conferences, trial, and sentence that there might be a sense of "he did it".

Lastly, for those who say "what if was your loved one?" (that was executed)
What if it was your loved one that was murdered?? Would you rather them sit in prison, getting phone calls, visits on holidays, spending tax payers dollars on commissary items??? How would you feel

Get rid of the crooked lawyers, judges and lobbyists who try to make a name for themselves and a buck, and the system will work as it was meant to.

No in fact it should be strengthened murder (not in self defense)should be punished with death crimes against humanity in general should be (meaning rape of children or the elderly or any crime so heinous in nature that is far outside the realm of human behavior). stop coddling these scum if there is significant DNA evidence it should be one year to exhaust your appeals them straight to death no more 20 years on death row it cost the American taxpayer way to much to keep these scumbags locked up lets just spend the 10 cent for the ammo and shoot them sure keeping them locked up gives us jobs but these people are not beneficial to humanity in any way they are just leaches living off our tax money and actually living better than a lot of us are right now give em a year then a point blank round right between the eyes

Originally posted by Snoopy1978
reply to post by CynicalDrivel

 

Stopping a murderer by murdering him. Don't play semantics. Your hypocrisy oozes out yet you continue to defend the indefensible.

Your concept of me and what I said doesn't change that Murder by definition is unsanctioned and hidden killing. I wouldn't have a need to play semantics if people would pay attention to what words mean. Killing and murder do not have the same meaning, and calling one by the other's name does not make them anything but what definition they fit.

If killing is allowed by law, it's not Murder, by definition. So, if the death penalty is a law that is put in place by any group that you are subjected to, they are not murdering. 1. It doesn't mean that it is morally the best option or anything that you can ever swallow. 2. It doesn't mean you shouldn't do anything about it, either. 3. It's totally irrelevant as to whether or not it's repugnant/unevolved/stupid/too damned specific, even. So, if you don't like it, you get the law changed, and then when someone uses the Death Penalty against the law, then you can call it murder.

Now does this mean that Government is incapable of murder by definition? Governments that hide killing or go against their own rules to kill are murderers. Also, if there is a conflicting lawmaker that has the same people in subjugation, the kill will not be a murder under one law, and will be murder under the other.

So, you still haven't changed the word's meaning by changing 2 words from kill to murder or by calling me any form of peculiar. The proper wording is still: Stopping a murderer by killing him. Love it, hate it, be upset about it, doesn't matter to me.

Besides, this assumption of my character underlying all this mess does not take into account the fact that I'm going to submit to the need to be rid of the Death Penalty--which was stated before your acusation was posted. I don't generally believe in simply telling people my conclusion without leading them through the entirity of my reasoning--especially when I can back up what I say without merely opinion.

Oh, and Hypocricy:

c.1200, ipocrisie, from O.Fr. ypocrisie, from L.L. hypocrisis, from Gk. hypokrisis "acting on the stage, pretense," from hypokrinesthai "play a part, pretend," also "answer," from hypo- "under" (see sub-) + middle voice of krinein "to sift, decide" (see crisis). The sense evolution in Attic Greek is from "separate gradually" to "answer" to "answer a fellow actor on stage" to "play a part." The h- was restored in English 16c.

Hypocricy is to have pretenses, or a false face. I have not hidden who or what I am in here, not even by hiding that I have a conflict of interest on this subject matter--which I do. So you fail to make your point because I'm not hiding a darn thing.

reply to post by LrBc1275

2) in the event that I seemed hypocritical in my pov of a "mistake" in an execution, consider the following; if a doctor is guilty of malpractice-should we stop medicine? If a building contractor's house falls down- should we stop erecting buildings? If a student doesnt learn in school do we shut them down?? the answer is NO.

A doctor guilty of malpractice is criminal, and as they generally are, should be held accountable for their crimes. A contractor who has built a faulty edifice also, as they generally are, needs to be held accountable for the harm caused. The third example you give is a profound indictment on government monopolies, for surely students are not learning in our public schools and unlike the doctor guilty of malpractice, or the building contractor guilty of malfeasance or ineptitude, teachers are rarely held accountable for failing to teach. They should, none the less, be held accountable for their crimes just as the criminal doctor, building contractor and state sanctioned murderer should be held accountable for their crimes.

Further, suggesting that capital punishment is a service as necessary as medicine, building homes or other buildings, or teaching is remarkably short sighted. A populace with out any medical practices becomes a sick populace soon enough. A populace without any contractors to build edifices remains a homeless populace, and that populace without any teachers remains either ignorant, or free of indoctrination depending upon who is teaching and why. However, a populace without the death penalty does not in anyway threaten the social fabric in the same way that eliminating medicine, building, or teaching would.

Therefore, maybe instead of considering the ENTIRE system flawed, identify the problems with each case. States with the death penalty evoke a general deterrent for offenders committing capital crimes.

Reification does not make something true. The canard that capital punishment acts as a deterrent has never been proven, and there is scads of studies suggesting quite the opposite. Frankly, if it were true that capital punishment deterred murder, then at some point murder would be nearly nonexistent. It is not, and people continue to murder in states where the death penalty is in place, just as they do in other states.

Our Forefathers faced certain death penalty if they lost the Revolution for Independence, but that certain punishment did not in any way deter them from fighting that revolution.

And with jury trials in these offenses, it is the JURY that determines guilt, not just one person or a crooked lawyer...it is everyday people. The judge will impose the death sentence. And don't you think if a case made it through an investigation, a grand jury, pre-trial conferences, trial, and sentence that there might be a sense of "he did it".

"Any prosecutor who wanted to could indict a ham sandwich!’

N.Y. Judge Solomon Wachter - 1985

Wacther's assertion has become common day usage among not only lawyers, but Tom Wolfe used the quote in his book The Bonfires of Vanities.

The reasoning behind the expression is simple. A prosecutor is allowed to present any evidence, (true or fabricated) in order to convince a grand jury of a defendants guilt. The prosecutor will often take full advantage of this edge and present whatever is needed, even knowing that what is being presented will be ruled inadmissible at trial, in order to gain an indictment, and of course, the defendant, or as in Wachter's metaphor, anything the ham sandwich might say in its defense can be used against that ham sandwich.

"Pre-trial" conferences would be the evidentiary hearings, where any facts that need to be challenged are. The moment a defendant enters a plea, that portion of the trial is over, and on to the trial itself. Evidentiary hearings is where a person would challenge jurisdiction if applicable. Few convicts on death row knew anything about such a process before entering a plea, and only learning about this process afterward then had to find an attorney willing to go down the challenge of jurisdiction road. Attorneys are licensed and have sworn a fealty to the very court system they are supposed to operate as the defendants advocate in. It is very disturbing conflict of interest to have someone whose fealty belongs to the court stand up and "represent" you in any criminal case, let alone a capital case where the death penalty looms large.

You ultimately end your argument with the fairy tale presumption that if only we vanquish the wicked then wicked institutions such as the death penalty will "work" as intended. Uh-huh, and maybe some day your prince will come, or your princess will awaken by your kiss.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


if , as you claim - capital punishment does not deter crime , then does any punishment or statute deter crime ?

if not - why enforce or uphold any of them ?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


Your intelligence enlightens me but your liberal way of thought makes me want to bang my head off the wall. You picked apart my entire post (which I do appreciate)....however the only piece of it which you didnt touch was the portion that has no "correct" answer.

If it was your family member that was murdered...would you feel the same way?

Many people are very quick to bash the police....until they need them. Very quick to bash say umm...the death penalty, until someone they love was cut into a million pieces by some scumbag. I hope you never have to deal with something like that, but if you do, make sure you tell the judge your argument why this person should not be put to death....and then maybe you can visit him on christmas as he spends the rest of his life in jail

reply to post by LrBc1275


Respectfully, I did not answer your question of if because you ask about my feelings, and appear to want to place base emotional reactions over law.

I should clarify what I mean by law. All law is simple, true, universal, and absolute. This is natural law, which encompasses the laws of physics, of mathematics, of natural law which also includes the governing actions of humanity and the consequences to violations of certain unalienable rights. Under these laws, which are natural and preexist any artifice such as government, and are also simple, true, universal, and absolute, every person has the right to life.

Thus, murder is a violation of the right to life. Statutorily speaking, the People have wisely determined that there are degrees of murder, the most heinous being premeditated murder. A murderer who plots and with meticulous execution carries out the deed, is considered the most egregious of violations to the right to life.

It matters not how I, You, or anyone else feels about the murder of a loved one, there is no remedy in the cold, calculated, and meticulous execution of the murderer, only revenge. Revenge is not law, it is an emotional reaction to events. Neither You, I, nor anyone else has the right to take another person's life under the circumstances you describe.

There are, under the restraints of natural law, a few very narrow and limited times when You, I, or anyone else can take another persons life. Those narrow and limited times are under self defense, defense of property, or the defense of others about to loose their lives. Under these conditions, anyone one of us have the right to use whatever force necessary to protect the life, or property at issue, outside of these circumstances, none of us have the right to take another persons life, regardless of what they have done.

If we can prevent the tragic from happening then we should, and even must, but failing that, what is done is done. It is not lawful to murder a person as a form of civil punishment for their actions. There is another poster in this thread who has been disingenuously asserting that it is inappropriate to call the death penalty murder because it is not "hidden". As if being open and notorious about the slaying changes it from a crime to a right. If this were so, the John Wilkes Booth would not have been pursued as a criminal who had assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Sirhan Sirhan would not be sitting in prison today for the open and notorious assassination of Robert Kennedy, and Jared Lee Loughner would not be in the mess he is today, if all it takes to excuse the murder is making it open and notorious.

No games of semantics, no matter how well argued the fallacy, no argument advocating unlawful behavior will stand muster when heard by the ears of the rational and critical thinker. Arguing that your feelings are what justify your need for a state sanctioned murder only undermine the feelings of those who disagree with you. The truth of the matter is that there are parents of children who have been brutally murdered who are opposed to the death penalty, so your question presumes that all people feel the same as you.

Perhaps you believe that we are a democracy of feelers and those who are the most that feel the most get to implement their feelings over those who feel differently. The majority feeling rules. We elect those legislators who feel just like we do, and demand they legislate "laws" that will make us feel better about electing those we felt would best represent our feelings. Does a world such as this feel right to you?

I don't know how you feel about the rational world, but it is in this world where the principles and laws of nature exist. While the fickle force of feelings is recognized by the rational thinker, it is recognized for what it is, a fickle force, and the rational observer will work to quiet their bias and come to an accurate and clear determination of the world around them. In the rational world, I understand that all people have the right to life, and the only time another person runs the risk of granting me jurisdiction to take that life is under self defense, defense of property, or defense of others facing certain death. In this rational world, I could only hope and pray that if one of my loved ones was facing murder, I would be there to protect them. Failing that...

How would I feel if someone murdered my loved ones?

The feelings that would course through my veins and soul would be overwhelming, I am certain, but make no mistakes about this, whatever feelings I might have, I am certain that the overwhelming feeling would be one for desire and longing. A desire and longing to have my loved ones back. Executing the murderer will not assuage those feelings.

Originally posted by elevatedone
reply to post by roughycannon

 

If you're guilty and dead then you're not costing the tax payers millions of dollars to keep you clothed and fed.

And when you are innocent and alive you are costing the tax payers lots of money to keep you in jail, clothed and fed, and even to be wrongfully executed in some cases.

two sides of the coin.

To be honest, I am on the fence about the subject, I can see and understand both sides of the argument and am doing my own research as I type this. I even made a thread about the death penalty myself recently, looking to get others opinions on the matter.

I hate being on the fence. Those fence posts tend to poke me in the butt... So... I will come to a personal conclusion soon and will add more.

I think the fact that some times people are wrongfully executed is not enough to just do away with it.... What it says to me is that there needs to be a revision in the justice system. We need to step back and see where the errors are being made and if possible, fix them....If that makes sense.

Is one dead innocent person worth it?

There were numerous cases in the U.K, but people are under the misconception that this is the reason why it was abolished in the U.K.

The U.K signed up to the Human Rights Act after WWII, but the U.S didn't. Therefore, they will never abolish it.

Also as the U.K is part of the E.U, we will never reinstate it, it would simply not be allowed by Brussels. You think the U.K Parliament make their laws? With regards to welfare and taxation they do, for how much longer? The rest they are not allowed to tamper with.

As the E.U commissioners would say, if they were fans of The League Of Gentleman. 'You're my wife now.'.

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

if , as you claim - capital punishment does not deter crime , then does any punishment or statute deter crime ?

if not - why enforce or uphold any of them ?

There can only be one just reason for the establishment of government and that is the protection of the rights of the individual.

There is an hierarchy to this establishment of government in order to establish justice, and it begins with the right to life. You have the right to life, the O.P. has the right to life, I have the right to life, and every poster in this thread, every member who hasn't posted in this thread, and every person on the planet has the unalienable right to life.

It follows then, that if we have the right to life, we have the right to defend that life. If we have the right to self defense, it follows then that we have the right to come together collectively to establish an organization towards that same end. Such an organization would be government. The just government does what it was mandated to do, which is to protect the rights of individuals. The moment government moves outside of this narrow scope of jurisdiction that government is no longer acting just.

Protecting rights does not mean enacting legislation that would presumably prevent the denial and/or disparagement of an individuals right. It is beyond folly to presume that acts of legislation designed to "prevent" crime would actually do so. Murder was not legislated as a crime in order to prevent murder from happening, it was legislated and enacted to clearly define the governments authority to deal with the consequences of such a crime. Theft was not legislated as a crime to prevent crime, but again was done so to clearly define governments authority to deal with the consequences of theft.

Law is, as Frederic Bastiat put it, organized justice. Law is justice, and when all are acting lawfully justice prevails. When only one acts unlawfully, this creates an absence of justice. It is in this absence of justice that we truly and genuinely recognize justice. When more than just one, and when many act unlawfully, this absence of justice creates a vacuum so wide and so breathtakingly oppressive that it can overwhelm the rational senses and make any sane person feel as if the world has gone terribly wrong.

This site has flourished because there are so many who feel as if the world has gone terribly wrong. The United States imprisons more people per capita than any other industrialized nation in the world. The United States imprisons more people per capita than China does today, and more than the Soviet Union ever did at the height of their tyranny, and a large portion of this prison nation consists of people convicted of drug related "crimes". The so called "war on drugs" is a massive series of legislative acts designed to "prevent crime" and the consequences of this absurd folly is that the United States, which is currently fighting two wars on foreign lands and looking at fighting even more wars "to keep the world safe for democracy", and regularly touts itself as "the freest nation in the world" imprisons more people per capita than infamous tyrannical nations do!

What has gone terribly wrong is the irrational belief that humans have the capacity to invent laws and by doing so somehow change the natural course of human interactions. Laws exist with or without humanity, and the rose, porcupine, and skunk all have the same right to life that humans do, and they have the right to self defense. This is why a rose does not need a congress of roses in order to derive the right to keep and bear thorns. This is why the porcupine does not need a decree from a king in order to derive the right to keep and bear needles, and this is why the skunk does not need permission from the state in order to spew its stink.

Would your so called "preventive laws" keep skunks from spewing its stink? Would erasing the First Amendment prevent infants from wailing at the top of their lungs at 2:30 in the morning? Would erasing that same Amendment and issuing a decree that all people must now worship the Moon Goddess prevent Catholics from being Catholics, or Jews from being Jews, or Muslims from being Muslims? Would erasing that same Amendment prevent the written word from being read, and would it somehow make the sword mightier than the pen?

The sense that the world has gone terribly wrong persists because humanity keeps committing atrocities that are horribly wrong. These atrocities are the denial and disparagement of individual rights. Government has been mandated with protecting these rights. Failing that does not empower government to further fail and murder murderers, any more than they derive the right to steal from thieves, or rape rapists, or beat up bullies.

To answer the question , only if abortion is abolished as well.

Originally posted by brilab45
America is supposedly founded upon Christian principles. I disagree. Very obvious it was not.

Thou shall not kill. One of the ten commandments that we most certainly don't follow.

When Perry spoke about the death penalty and people cheered, I was dismayed to say the least.

Apparently we are not of Christian values. We are of the ancient Colosseum times. Blood and more blood!

Execution is wrong on all levels. Are we cretins? How many people have been executed that are innocent?

Christian nation my arse. We are no better than Iran. Pathetic.

the death penalty is very very Christian, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life. Have you read that book you are talking about. vengeance killing is all the rage in the bible.

reply to post by CaDreamer

the death penalty is very very Christian, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life. Have you read that book you are talking about. vengeance killing is all the rage in the bible.

The Bible, Christianity and Judaism are not relevant to the death penalty. It is either a just act or it is not. There is no in between only justice, or injustice. The injustice must be measurable, and it is measurably so that executing people, for whatever actual crimes may have been committed, is a premeditated act done with the full intent to kill another person, and under these circumstances becomes the very crime it is often punishing by this method.

That said, you're understand of Christianity in regards to the Bible is severely lacking:

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matthew 5:38-39

Regardless, what the Bible has to say about capital punishment has no more bearing on law than Genesis has to do with law. We can quibble on what was meant by "seven days", but it is reasonably observable that world was more than likely not created in "seven days", or "six days, and the seventh reserved for rest". This is not to disparage the Bible and its wisdom, only to clarify that natural law is not very well described in much of the passages found in the bible, and science has done a better job of describing law. Sometimes, and it is usually those with scientific minds, People come along who recognize the human interactions in all their complexity and majesty are also governed by natural law, and any violations of these laws results in some form of ill conceived consequence.

Demystifying law is paramount in societies that endeavor to establish justice. As long as law is presented as a mystical creation, like a spell or incantation from a powerful wizard, there will be no justice.

then how do you reconcile vengeance is mine sayeth the lord time and again the god of the bible executed people, entire cities, entire peoples (genocide) his reasons are unimportant. saying that people who vouch for the death penalty are not Christians, is in fact a silly assumption based on... faith? it sure isn't based on the bible. remember there are two volumes...

i agree though that the bible has nothing to do with the subject and is a distraction from the issue. as i stated waaaay back on the first page, i am for eliminating the death penalty entirely, even if its use can be justified, its application is too flawed to be effective.
i am also anti war...

Originally posted by CaDreamer
then how do you reconcile vengeance is mine sayeth the lord time and again the god of the bible executed people, entire cities, entire peoples (genocide) his reasons are unimportant. saying that people who vouch for the death penalty are not Christians, is in fact a silly assumption based on... faith? it sure isn't based on the bible. remember there are two volumes...

i agree though that the bible has nothing to do with the subject and is a distraction from the issue. as i stated waaaay back on the first page, i am for eliminating the death penalty entirely, even if its use can be justified, its application is too flawed to be effective.
i am also anti war...

edit on 27-9-2011 by CaDreamer because: typo / clarity

If you are going to ignore the passage I posted from Matthew that is your business, but that passage clearly refutes the "eye for an eye" mentality, and suggests that we take a kinder, gentler approach to such offense. I could care less if you find wisdom in the Bible or not, but technically speaking Christians rely upon the New Testament as their foundational basis for religion, and you are referencing Old Testament ideas to indict "The Christian Ethic". It is either through ignorance, or willful propaganda, but if your cause is just, there is no reason to obfuscate the truth.

if volume 1 is bad for your specific christian outlook then perhaps you should start your own religion and publicly state that the old testament isn't accurate nor does it reflect beliefs that modern Christians believe... it makes little sense to disregard the majority of the bible because it makes Christians look like blood thirsty savages when you adhere to all of the old mosaic tenants...either it is all valid on none of it is valid...

your point about the eye for an eye comment is well taken and retracted the entire rest of my post still stands valid, nothing was disproved other than one quote that fostered old testament mentality.

and the history and track record of the christian god is indeed valid when any person makes the claim that their god is good and just when in fact their publication has dozens of examples of atrocities.
if your god where alive today, he would be standing with the likes of Hitler and Osama