Capital Punisment: Justice or Murder?

Even then, it's better than paying the many thousands of dollars it takes to keep a prisoner in jail for life.

 

I don't think cost should ever come before justice. I think that the general public would agree that the money that needs to be spent on keeping said "life" prisoners alive and torturing them for the rest of their lives would be well spent.

 

Not gonna read the whole thread, nor am I going to express my views again.
Not now anyway.

Correction: part of the general public would agree that it's money well spent and the other, more pragmatic part of the general public would wonder what's in it for them.
This has nothing to do with capital punishment but I've been following the news here in my country more closely and recently an already obvious trait of (part of) the general public has become even more obvious: they dislike paying.

 

ok well what if the person blamed for the crime was innnocent? then they just kill them? that's not a fair punishment.

 

As said before, DNA evidence has come a very long way. something like that is very unlikely to happen.

 

But you can never be sure and people are a lot of the time quick to blame others.

 

Actually, a lot of times you can be sure. Most if not all of the faulty DNA evidence being found is from 20 years ago, when DNA testing was in it's infancy. It's much more developed now, and, provided the forensics team isn't corrupt or some bullshit like that, pretty much infallible.

 

Most of the cost of keeping a person in prison comes from them being treated the same way as someone who has not committed a crime. Therefore part of the whole torturing idea would reduce the price per prisoner.

 

Can you please define "torture"? Do you mean like, Guantanamo Bay style torture, or just solitary confinement "torture"? Because I seriously doubt a lot of people would be okay with extreme torture if they don't want to pay taxes for the death penalty.

 

It all depends on how bad the crime was. A life taken by a murder, in my personal opinion, wouldbe to put the murderer to death. It states in the U.S. Constitution that an individual has the right to life unless he threatens to end life for another. Not in those exact words, but close enough. Several years back, Saddam Hussein was put to death for taking the lives of many and forming an evil and corrupt government. Totally justifiable his death was. Put yourself in a situation where a family member was killed by a hated and despised person in your neighborhood. You know they were mentally unstable, had contracted several incurable STD's due to their sexual assault crimes, overall they were a sick serial killer. Wouldn't you want them to die for your good, and also their good too?

 

I've never been a big fan of capital punishment. At least not in the way that it's currently being used. I don't think that murderers should necessarily get it on the grounds that they killed someone so they deserve to be killed, but the really sick ****s. Like that dude who kept a girl in her backyard for 18 years, people like that. The main difference between the two is that you can put most murderers in a jail cell for x amount of time (the effectiveness of this is arguable, but it is how our justice system works so that's an entirely different debate) and everything turns out peachy keen as far as the law is concerned. You can't do that with those ridiculously and totally insane people. That just won't work.

No matter how much you look at it, it is still murder. Legalized and systematic murder, but murder still. This is the main reason why it should be used only to necessity, that killing people that don't need to be killed effectively puts the justice system on the same level as the murderers in question. In my personal, honest opinion, intentionally taking somebody's life is never justified, unless they are threatening your life, and even then it's to an extent of practicality. But honestly, the people who tie up people in their basement and torture them as a form of entertainment have crossed the line, they are a threat to anyone and everyone around them and it can be argued that, if possible, they should be put in solitary confinement for x amount of years, but that only tends to breed psychological decay.

So in my opinion, it should only be used in the most drastic of cases (only to necessity). Other people can arguably be dealt with through time or confinement, but sometimes there is no other option. I personally don't like it on a moral level, but on a more logical level I can see where people are coming from.

 

I don't believe corporal punishment should be used for criminals that can be held safely in prison for the duration of their lives. I do think some people definitely should never be given outs of prison as they are harms to society when free, but if they can be held in prison safely and live life there acceptably, I don't really see that we should be condoning someone else to kill those people.

However, if someone is truly vile, is a person that simply cannot be held without endangerment of guards and other prisoners, well, I may have to debate the view of whether it should be used or not on these types of people. Most people, to include notorious serial killers, give up and figure the gig is over once they hit prison with a life sentence. Some are even pretty docile at that point. Psychiatrists can also analyze some of the more notorious people and others to get more understanding into what turns people out to be this way. There have been leaps and bounds made but there's still a ways to go.

In the end, I feel that corporal punishment is really nothing short of revenge and that is not justice to me. If a person can be held safely and soundly and out of harm's way, then I think it should be done. If the person cannot be held as such and keeps harming/killing, well that person is one of the few and may have to be put out his/her misery as much as everyone else's. Of course, I do think some laws need revised that are letting rapists and murderers out early when there's a track record of repeats, but corporal punishment, though it ends the problem, also has killed innocent people as well as criminals. In my mind, killing 1 innocent is enough to say that it should be removed because no one deserves to lose life for a crime that was not committed. Reducing corporal punishment to those who screw up immensely in prison would save those people's lives too so if things come up later proving their innocence, they can get out and have some kind of life.

 

DNA isn't perfect. We can still get conviction if it doesn't come to DNA. For example, false confession. Also, you say "nearly perfect". How many lives per year are you prepared to have extinguished due to it being only nearly perfect? A law abiding taxpayer should not have the chance of paying for their own death.

Solitary confinement? Sure, fire away! Provided they can be removed from prison and start functioning as they were before incarceration with only a few weeks of recovery time, I'm fine with it. Concrete single-cells sound good. Provided they get the necessities of life, I have no problem. Sunlight, exercise and a balanced diet. Let's include the ability for them to choose death too. But make it impossible for an innocent person to lose their chance of freedom.

 

Am I the only one "immoral" enough to risk a few innocent lives to lighten the financial burden on so many others by executing some criminals swiftly but cheaply?

I for one, am prepared to give it a test run. Like keeping track of all executions and all individual cases and review that data in a decade or so to see if the system has more benefits or flaws. If, and that would be a big if if everyone actually did their job (which is unfortunately a big if itself), capital punishment does happen to be a complete failure then at least we have some rational ground to justify our abortion of it instead of the "life is holier than holy" preaching.

 

Okay.. well it's not even necessarily an issue of 'immoral'. It's logic. I doubt you would support the death penalty if it was you accused of a crime wrongfully that is bloody enough to get you on Death Row and there's nothing you can say or do about it because people are literally fanning and waiting for your death because they believe you are awful and took people away from them etc. Everyone can feel a desire for revenge but if it is misguided especially, that person who suffers gets no justice him or herself. What about the person's family or friends who lost that person and knew he or she did not do the crime? Also, we're not talking one or two mistaken deaths. There are quite a few mistakes that happen. Isn't that -also- murder?

Also, do you feel you could sit there and give people death because you feel you are justified in having them killed? The people that do these things can be debatable at just how right they are in the head. People paid to kill others in this 'line em up' way will have problems and some gain PTSD or other mental traumas when things catch up to them. Why put the burden of killing people who are already caught, apprehended and rather helpless in someone's hands so they too are killers? Lethal injection is still killing and there has been serious debate about how much more 'humane' it is despite how 'neat' and clean the death is. There is a difference between killing someone in the field of battle or a cop having to take down a spree killer to stop him or her from shooting people up, or having to take down someone in your home that snuck in and holds you at gunpoint VS taking a person out of a cage and tying them down, having people around who want to see vengeance served, and doing the act of killing a person who can't do crap to anyone at that point. To me, it's freaking cowardly and it really does only serve as ultimate revenge. There's no justice in it as it is a Final Solution when a final solution may not have even been necessary and it could just be the wrong choice all along.

 

Actually, I wouldn't be too cheerful at the thought of being tucked away for life either. I might even cherish false hope that they'll uncover their mistake, hope which possibly leads to despair because my expectations remain unfulfilled.
No, if I was wrongfully accused I wouldn't be too happy about it but I'd be upset for the fact that I am being punished and much less, if at all, for the nature of that punishment.

Or maybe they too support the death penalty and aren't filthy hypocrites who are willing to practice what they preach. And if so many of them gain mental traumas, then we need to be stricter on who we hire for these executions now won't we?

I've never seen it as revenge as much as I've seen it as the ultimate potentially reasonably priced safety precaution.
The act itself is no more humane than me bludgeoning some random passer-by to the afterlife. It's the purpose of the act which makes it that one step higher than your friendly neighbourhood murder. That, and the fact that it isn't (or shouldn't be) one individual that decides upon right and wrong but rather the law as a whole.
Yes, I know what you'll say to this. The judge is still one person and (s)he's still the one making the ultimate decision. Not quite how I want it yet either but it's trial period worthy to say the least. I'm curious to see if the system would work with the current imperfections we have.

I still stick to my opinion that we should make a test drive with capital punishment to see how much dough we'll save up and how efficiently we make hazardous elements kick the bucket. If the system doesn't look promising enough I'm willing to eat my words on this matter.
Lately some events in the papers have given me second thoughts but I'm not convinced until I have a better view on the results.

 

Why does a person have to do the execution at all? Make it fully automated - a human straps a criminal down, and a machine executes them in whatever way the state deems fit.

 

Okay, but at least you have some hope and there's something that can happen. People have been freed from wrongful imprisonment. Point is the death penalty means that person can never be free or compensated. If someone is wrongfully held, they even get money compensation back to catch up with their lives and a public apology so people know the person is not the criminal and they can move on.

Himmler was an office desk murderer who sent out people to do killings of people who were helpless too. They tried to tone down the impact on the soldiers by using gas chambers. Before you say 'but the Jews, Gypsies argument here is are irrelevant', the Einsatzgruppen were pretty well taught that these people were the most dangerous thing to leave untouched for Germany, likening them to the worst of criminals. If murder of people who were helpless was too much for the Einsatzgruppen SS, despite all their mental conditioning, I'm failing to see how it is not harmful to anyone else's state of mind unless the person is a sociopath and they get off on it.

Even the way we deal with meat butchers anymore and killing animals on farms has been altered so that people don't have to feel 'as bad' about it. I would hardly consider someone a hypocrite for 'wanting' something to happen and not being capable of doing it. There are times I would say some jerks really do seem to deserve death over life.. but at the same time, that's rage talking. If someone is helpless and contained, I would have a hard time dealing with killing the person and I'm a former soldier. I -know- conflict. It is not the same and it's rather cowardly. You have to be one very cold person to kill people that are helpless whether they've done horrible things or not, and also horribly judgmental. I ponder if any of them felt guilt over the people they killed wrongfully. If not, maybe they need to be in line too.

Because it's -death- essentially, no one saves -more money- with capital punishment. To make death clean costs money so that you don't have people that crack easily or psychopaths at the controls, and people can bury their loved one after without a bullet to the head. After all, the person committed the crime, not the ones who may care about that person. Lawyers will go to retrial and we will pay to represent someone if the people cannot afford lawyers as is their rights. Appeals galore happen, especially because in some cases, it's not a 'black and white' issue of why someone snapped and murdered someone else. Also there are so many people on death row that it's backed up because the practice must be done a specific way. 10 to 20 years is too long to wait for -death- because then you are in anyway for years in prison.

I respect your view, though we differ here, but just had to wonder one thing. Why in the world do you -think- it's something new when capital punishment has been around for hundreds/thousands of years? It's the older more barbaric thing to do really, with roots in the Bible, in medieval times, the Dark Ages, the Puritans did it, the Middle East and quite a few countries still practice it and some states do it and have since the wild west times. I do feel the prison and rehab conditions need altered to fit the times more, but I highly doubt stepping backwards is the cure when we have much better methods at our disposal if we wanted to apply ourselves.

 

It depends on the crime. For instance, if the person who was going to be commited to this punishment killed children in horrible ways, or just people in general, and was generally insane, where medication couldn't or wouldn't help, then I would say it was just.

If it a girl who was mentally ******ed, could be fixed with medication, but who had murdered a school full of people, I would say try her on medication first. It all depends on the individual cases, and what they were, if they need help or not, or if there was even a reason at all. I would say 50/50 on it being just.

 

i believe it is justive for some and murder for others to put it simply certain crimes deserve certain punishments, example a man rapes a child, he should be raped with a shotgun and have the trigger pulled,end of story. but less severe crimes like someone stealing a ring or some jewelry then its murder i think life in prison or 70+ years in prison should be automatic death after a 1 year grace period to ensure that there are abosolutely NO errors.