Should The U.S. Abolish the Death Penalty ?

Originally posted by StratosFear
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!

And you don't worry about wrongly convicted people being sent to their death ?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


to be blunt - your are making a case for reform of the criminal trail process

not simply a repeal of the death penalty

I weighed in earlier on this topic but just revisited in order to star all of the people who recognize that the death penalty is BARBARIC.

I encourage everyone to look at the Wikipedia page on capital punishment. Look at the nations that the United States counts itself amongst.

America, you should be ashamed.

en.wikipedia.org...

Bring back banishment.

There are plenty of suitable locations.

reply to post by Reaching


Exactly "land of the free and home of the brave" apparently but what is free and brave about terminating someones life when there is holes in the prosecution. Looks like US has got a lot more in common with its enemies than they know.

Death is so final, and unless we get all minority report you can never be 100 percent.

reply to post by elevatedone


The Death penalty should be abolished.

Two wrongs do not make a right, the Death penalty is hypocrisy and has nothing to do with justice.

The Death penalty is revenge.

The Death penalty is murder by the State, an evil that cloaks itself in the semantic term execution as if that somehow justifies the action.

And what do you supporters of the Death Penalty do when your "Justice" system gets it wrong and condemns an innocent person to death, shrug your shoulders and say "well it isn't perfect".

We all detest murder, but the state condones killing, do you see the contradiction? try leading by example rather than fueling the crime.

It is NOT OK for the faceless entity known as the State to kill anybody for any reason other than War, and for us individuals, any reason other than self-defense or War, that is the line.

The Death Penalty is a self-justified expression of psychopathy and in the final analysis it debases us as civilized human beings, it makes us no better than the people we hold in contempt.

The Death Penalty is archaic and barbaric and should be consigned to the garbage bin where it belongs.

Cosmic...

reply to post by eyesdown


Once it had been proved it was the guilty party of course. But i dont like the idea that someone who has gone around molesting kids or a serial killer to sit behind bars, eat 3 meals a day and live a smei-comfortable exisitence on my tax dollar either. Maybe the investigators need to pull their heads out of their asses and do their job right there wouldnt be wrongful convictions, I know some of these ppl and they`re more worried about having a story than having the right story if you know what i mean.

OK how about this, you are standing in your own front yard and notice 3 men breaking into a house across the street, a few minute later they all come out with the homeowner who they shoot in the head on his own porch. The men are caught and spend the next 3 years waiting for a trial which keeps getting delayed by incompetent and corrupt DAs. After finally getting a trial the men were given life sentences. So now its up to the taxpayer to keep them up in prison? And say some kind of meltdown were to happen, are they going to be released if the prisons can no longer hold them were they can go forth and bring further misery and pain on the world. How stupid is that?

reply to post by eyesdown


Maybe we aren't entirely free.. but I'd consider myself pretty brave for not having fled to Mexico or Canada yet.
Well... actually I think I'd be more content in Brazil.

reply to post by StratosFear


That's the whole point. It's impossible to do what you are saying.
The guy executed yesterday was most probably innocent. They even stayed the execution for like 2 hours.. then they killed him. He refused a last meal, he refused anti anxiety pill, he refused anti convulsion medicine. He told the family he was sorry for there loss but it wasn't him and he told the people who were killing him God bless them.

There will always be wrongful convictions. Maybe we should stop killing people and start rehabilitating them. Also, instead of just throwing them in prison and forgetting them help them. Imagine you get convicted and half America is calling you scum and no one listens to you because your in a hole somewhere and you are set to die.

reply to post by StratosFear


You could release the prisoners who perpetrated victimless crimes. Then there would be plenty of room to house the ones that actually hurt someone else without lowering yourselves to their level by executing them in the name of vengence.

Just a novel thought really.

Oh and before somebody comes back with "I don't want my taxpayer money housing a criminal whinge whinge moan moan" let me remind you that it has been proven multiple times that it costs more to execute someone than it does to imprison them for life. Nor can you bring back the "good ol days" of taking them out back and putting a bullet in them without compromising the very basis of the American justice system, or the appearance of it anyway.

Originally posted by StratosFear
reply to post by eyesdown

 

Once it had been proved it was the guilty party of course. But i dont like the idea that someone who has gone around molesting kids or a serial killer to sit behind bars, eat 3 meals a day and live a smei-comfortable exisitence on my tax dollar either. Maybe the investigators need to pull their heads out of their asses and do their job right there wouldnt be wrongful convictions, I know some of these ppl and they`re more worried about having a story than having the right story if you know what i mean.

OK how about this, you are standing in your own front yard and notice 3 men breaking into a house across the street, a few minute later they all come out with the homeowner who they shoot in the head on his own porch. The men are caught and spend the next 3 years waiting for a trial which keeps getting delayed by incompetent and corrupt DAs. After finally getting a trial the men were given life sentences. So now its up to the taxpayer to keep them up in prison? And say some kind of meltdown were to happen, are they going to be released if the prisons can no longer hold them were they can go forth and bring further misery and pain on the world. How stupid is that?

I love how everyone focuses on tax payers money this and that, if they didn't spend it on the prison system, they would spend it on something else that wouldn't benefit you. If they kill off every prisoner that commited an offence worse than theft you still wont be happy with what they do with your tax money and they wont decrease how much they tax you either.

As to your scenario, you are asking me if i agree with eye for and eye and too be honest as angry and sick as murders make me feel I wouldn't become one myself so I won't jump for joy at the thought of execution. Prison is supposed to be rehabilitation.

reply to post by eyesdown


They use the ridiculous (and proven wrong) excuse of taxpayer money because they are grasping at straws trying to find justification for their desire to see people die in an act of vengeance.

Obviously you American's are free to do as you all see fit and proper in your own States and country.

If you feel comfortable and at ease being bracketed with those other nations who carry out capital punishment then so be it.
You know, those countries like North Korea, China, Iran etc, those that you moralise to about civil liberty abuses etc and who you allege to be diametrically opposed to.

Perhaps you aren't all that different from them when it comes down to harsh realities of things.

And you fail to recognise the hypocrisy and double standards in saying that it is wrong to kill someone so because you have killed someone we are going to kill you

It is state approved murder.

One innocent person murdered as a result of a wrongful conviction is one person too many and if proven then those responsible should by rights be tried and convicted of murder and condemned to the same fate as the wrongly murdered individual.

I fully understand the emotions involved.
It must be traumatic for family and friends of the murder victim.
But as has been stated it is more a natural desire for vengeance rather than justice.

Maybe the natural desire for vengeance wouldn't be so strong if jail sentences and the treatment etc of such prisoners represented the evilness of the crime committed.

Personally I see no problem with full life sentences, bare prison cells, a very basic diet, chain gangs and hard labour etc for those convicted of murders without extenuating circumstances, rapists and paedophiles.

Yes get rid of it. Use the emotional detector scan people like :Troy Davis and Casey Anthony and asses from there.

reply to post by elevatedone


I am 100% against the death penalty,but in a society where such an option is available to the courts,I agree with you that there is an inordinate amount of time between the judgement and the sentence, keeping someone on death row for 20 years or more could be classed as unusual and cruel punishment quite apart from the cost of keeping that individual in prison whilst various legal arguments are parried back and forth.

However,in the recent case of Troy Davis,is anyone really 100% comfortable that they have the right man?

There should absolutely be a death penalty, provided the crime is murder, rape or child molestation and there is indisputable evidence. There's the catch. Most cases have at least some aspect to it that is disputable in some way. Oh, and no breaks for the mentally challenged or insane.

There's an interesting book by James Halprin (sp?) called The Truth Machine where the government petitions for the invention of an infallible lie detector and whoever invents it gets an extended patent and huge government contracts. The government then implements a 2 strikes and you're out (death) policy for violent offenders. Interesting read.

American logic:

Killing people
Who kill people
To show other people that killing is wrong

[sarcasm]Nice logic you have there America[/sarcasm]

if corporations are people why dont they get the death penalty?

well this is a question that has always played on my mind

because where is the justification in making another person responsible for lawfully killing someone else my idea would be a secure room the convicted person with a loaded one bullet gun and they can either shoot themselves or starve themselves to death

that way no one has it on there mind that they are a killer

but in the words of rick perry

"i have never lost sleep"

Originally posted by theruthlessone
but in the words of rick perry

"i have never lost sleep"

And therein lies the death of everything that makes us human and civilised.

There's a name for people like him, and those who agree - psychopaths.