Is the Death Penalty Justifiable?

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Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 02:14 am
My opinion on the Death Penalty is that it is justifiable only under certain circumstances but I won't explain my reasoning here. They are too complicated. And I prefer to leave the thread open for arguments either way. I will simply state my opinion: That there are in the world monstrous inhumans (not humans ... for to call them such would be irrational) whom the world would be far better off without.
 
Krumple
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 03:24 am
@Shostakovich phil,
Shostakovich;104803 wrote:
My opinion on the Death Penalty is that it is justifiable only under certain circumstances but I won't explain my reasoning here. They are too complicated. And I prefer to leave the thread open for arguments either way. I will simply state my opinion: That there are in the world monstrous inhumans (not humans ... for to call them such would be irrational) whom the world would be far better off without.


Could it be justifiable to put to death an innocent person? A person who for some reason or another slipped through the cracks of the system and wound up on the chopping block. Would that be alright? Maybe that never happens, only the guilty are found guilty. Maybe innocent people are never found guilty of crimes?

I think it would be far worse to put to death an wrongly accused innocent person.
 
jeeprs
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 03:44 am
@Shostakovich phil,
I agree that in specific cases there are ample justifications for the death penalty. However I am resolutely and completely opposed to institutional execution because it will always lead to the execution of an innocent man or woman in due course. This is especially true in a country where the legal system is skewed towards those who can afford the best defense, and many of the underclass don't have enough education or money to defend themselves.

I noted with a kind of grim irony that Russia just extended an indefinite moratorium on the death penalty (although it should be acnowledged there are many very sinister extra-judicial executions there).

So the emotive argument about the justice of executing some awful murderer who has raped and murdered an entire family ought not to distract consideration from the fact that if the death penalty is institutionalised, sooner or later you will always kill an innocent person.
 
xris
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 08:26 am
@jeeprs,
Any one who claims it is justified should be prepared to carry out the sentence themselves. The UK stopped capital punishment because of the many incorrect judgements that they suffered. I for one can see the necessity for vengeance and often would be only too pleased to kill the child murderer. Society alternatively, should regard it with the view that mistakes can and are made so it has to be excluded from our justice system. Many given a life sentence would prefer death, should that influence our feelings on punishment?
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 08:33 am
@Krumple,
Krumple;104809 wrote:
Could it be justifiable to put to death an innocent person? A person who for some reason or another slipped through the cracks of the system and wound up on the chopping block. Would that be alright? Maybe that never happens, only the guilty are found guilty. Maybe innocent people are never found guilty of crimes?

I think it would be far worse to put to death an wrongly accused innocent person.


But isn't the issue whether the death penalty is justifiable for persons who are guilty of murder? That innocent people may be put to death is a flaw, but that has nothing to do with the issue.
 
xris
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 08:44 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;104859 wrote:
But isn't the issue whether the death penalty is justifiable for persons who are guilty of murder? That innocent people may be put to death is a flaw, but that has nothing to do with the issue.
But you cant ignore the failure of a system when asking a question about a system you might encourage. You cant isolate it from reality.
 
manored
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 08:47 am
@Shostakovich phil,
Shostakovich;104803 wrote:
That there are in the world monstrous inhumans (not humans ... for to call them such would be irrational) whom the world would be far better off without.
I personally dont believe there are people wicked enough to not be considered humans, but there are wicked people alright =)

I think there is a problem in our penal systems wich is that they are based on the idea of that people can change, but society doesnt wants to give people a chance to change, it wants to "smite evil". So we end up with an hybrid that neither smites as much as the people want nor reforms as much as the laws intended. This is mostly a teory, since I cant really point out where the connection between the inneficiency of our penal systems and the divergences between people and laws is, But I doubt such divergences could exist winhout causing any troubles...

Ideally, death penalty should only be applied if there is no hope whatsoever of the criminal ever being reintegrated into society, nor of it working on prision to pay its own stay. But I think that criminals that get very long sentences/have little chances of ever being freed should probally be given the option of death after a few years in jail. A few years in jail because I think thats enough time for then to be 100% sure they prefer death than living like that.
 
xris
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 08:49 am
@manored,
manored;104862 wrote:
I personally dont believe there are people wicked enough to not be considered humans, but there are wicked people alright =)

I think there is a problem in our penal systems wich is that they are based on the idea of that people can change, but society doesnt wants to give people a chance to change, it wants to "smite evil". So we end up with an hybrid that neither smites as much as the people want nor reforms as much as the laws intended. This is mostly a teory, since I cant really point out where the connection between the inneficiency of our penal systems and the divergences between people and laws is, But I doubt such divergences could exist winhout causing any troubles...

Ideally, death penalty should only be applied if there is no hope whatsoever of the criminal ever being reintegrated into society, nor of it working on prision to pay its own stay. But I think that criminals that get very long sentences/have little chances of ever being freed should probally be given the option of death after a few years in jail. A few years in jail because I think thats enough time for then to be 100% sure they prefer death than living like that.
So are we more merciful in killing them or giving them life behind bars?
 
Aedes
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 09:19 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;104859 wrote:
But isn't the issue whether the death penalty is justifiable for persons who are guilty of murder? That innocent people may be put to death is a flaw, but that has nothing to do with the issue.
It has everything to do with the issue so long as we do not have absolute knowledge of guilt or innocence. How many innocent people is it acceptable to execute in order to have a death penalty for the truly guilty?
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 09:29 am
@xris,
xris;104861 wrote:
But you cant ignore the failure of a system when asking a question about a system you might encourage. You cant isolate it from reality.


I am just distinguishing between two different questions. I am not saying they cannot be considered together. But let's, at least, distinguish them: they are two moral questions. (1) Is capital punishment ever justifiable? (2) Does the possibility of killing innocents mean that no system of capital punishment is justifiable?
 
Caroline
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 09:53 am
@Shostakovich phil,
The last person that was hung in Britain was found to be innocent after, that was why it was abolished. Can't say I'd like to live in a country where I might be at risk of getting wrongly arrested and put to death.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:01 am
@Caroline,
Caroline;104875 wrote:
The last person that was hung in Britain was found to be innocent after, that was why it was abolished. Can't say I'd like to live in a country where I might be at risk of getting wrongly arrested and put to death.


I don't think it has to do with the country. It has to do with the fact that people are not perfect. It has nothing to do with whether the death penalty is justified. You don't stop putting rapists into prison because you might put an innocent man into prison, do you? Suppose a man said that he would not like to live in a country where they put rapists into prison, because he might be wrongly arrested.
 
Caroline
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:13 am
@Shostakovich phil,
There's a big difference to being imprisoned wrongly then to be killed wrongly, it's called life. And there is a big difference to imprisoning a rapist for a few years rather than life too, where society goes wrong is they think these monsters are rehabiltated, statistics show they go on to rape again and again. You want to start with the sentencing programme if anything and the stupid rehabilitation programmes that let these monsters go unpunished and free to do it again and again and mess up some other poor innocents life, it's called prevention not rehabilitation, you wanna start there if anywhere. Bringing back capital punishment only kills innocents too, why would you want that? You could be next. Not imprisoned wrongly then set free with millions of compenstation but gone for good, never to come back. If you want to bring capital punishement back how would you safegaurd it against hanging someone who is innocent and by the way would you bring back hanging or lethal injection because hanging is very barbaric, you don't just die straight away, your neck slowly breaks and you slowly suffocate, it takes ages to die, nice.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:15 am
@Aedes,
Aedes;104868 wrote:
It has everything to do with the issue so long as we do not have absolute knowledge of guilt or innocence. How many innocent people is it acceptable to execute in order to have a death penalty for the truly guilty?


That is a different issue. And we can discuss that too, I suppose. But the question is whether the death penalty is ever justified. Why should we mix-up issue? You can, of course, ask, whether a capital punishment law is ever justified given that innocent people may be mistakenly executed. But that does not deal with the question of whether the death penalty is ever justified.

---------- Post added 11-21-2009 at 11:17 AM ----------

Caroline;104881 wrote:
There's a big difference to being imprisoned wrongly then to be killed wrongly, it's called life. And there is a big difference to imprisoning a rapist for a few years rather than life too, where society goes wrong is they think these monsters are rehabiltated, statistics show they go on to rape again and again. You want to start with the sentencing programme if anything and the stupid rehabilitation programmes that let these monsters go unpunished and free to do it again and again and mess up some other poor innocents life, it's called prevention not rehabilitation, you wanna start there if anywhere. Bringing back capital punishment only kills innocents too, why would you want that? You could be next. Not imprisoned wrongly then set free with millions of compenstation but gone for good, never to come back. If you want to bring capital punishement back how would you safegaurd it against hanging someone who is innocent and by the way would you bring back hanging or lethal injection because hanging is very barbaric, you don't just die straight away, your neck slowly breaks and you slowly suffocate, it takes ages to die, nice.


But I am sure that you can understand a man who says he is against the law putting rapists into jail because an innocent person (like him) might be imprisoned, can't you? How is his argument different from yours about the death penalty? Is your answer that he shouldn't worry because at least he won't die if that happens to him?
 
Caroline
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:21 am
@Shostakovich phil,
No not at all but wasn't your agruement for capital punishment Kennathmy or am i mistaken, are you suggesting that we shouldn't put rapists into jail for fear of imprisoning an innocent, which is hard to do because of forensics, it rarely happens.

---------- Post added 11-21-2009 at 12:23 PM ----------

There is an element of risk of getting the wrong person which shouldn't be taken where capital punishement is concerned because it's so permanent, you can't undo it, gone, gone forever never to come back, what you gonna say, hard cheese?
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:26 am
@Caroline,
Caroline;104885 wrote:
No not at all but wasn't your agruement for capital punishment Kennathmy or am i mistaken, are you suggesting that we shouldn't put rapists into jail for fear of imprisoning an innocent, which is hard to do because of forensics, it rarely happens.


I was not arguing for capital punishment, first of all, and second of all, I was asking why, you think we should not have the death penalty for fear of executing the innocent, then why don't you think we should have a law putting rapists into prison. We might convict an innocent man there too, mightn't we? Why not in one case, and yes, in the other case? And, if a man is given a life sentence, or even a 25 year sentence, and he is innocent, what are you going to say to him; "hard cheese"?
 
Caroline
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:34 am
@Shostakovich phil,
Yes it is hard cheese that is where the system lies at fault, (but it rarely happens these days with forensics), but at least he still has his life and I think you'll find that is why the system doesn't want to take it's chances with killing innocent people, pretty obvious don't ya think?
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:37 am
@Caroline,
Caroline;104893 wrote:
Yes it is hard cheese that is where the system lies at fault, (but it rarely happens these days with forensics), but at least he still has his life and I think you'll find that is why the system doesn't want to take it's chances with killing innocent people, pretty obvious don't ya think?


Then why would you take chances with putting a man into prison for most of his productive life if he might be innocent? The difference isn't obvious to me. (It also rarely happens with the death penalty. Especially with DNA tests).
 
Caroline
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:40 am
@Shostakovich phil,
Rarley isn't good enough as far as the death penalty lies. You're not making any sense to me anymore, I said the system has faults, rather that then not put rapists in prison right. It rarely happenns these days anyway and I've already said people don't want to take any chances with the death penalty as its' so permanent.
 
kennethamy
 
Reply Sat 21 Nov, 2009 10:51 am
@Caroline,
Caroline;104897 wrote:
Rarley isn't good enough as far as the death penalty lies. You're not making any sense to me anymore, I said the system has faults, rather that then not put rapists in prison right. It rarely happenns these days anyway and I've already said people don't want to take any chances with the death penalty as its' so permanent.


Which people? There are lots of people who would argue that with the enormous number of appeals available to those accused of murder, and with the great power of DNA tests, the chances of killing an innocent man is less than putting an innocent man into prison. The difference between punishing people for rape and punishing people for murder, does not leap out at me as it seems to you. And I cannot help thinking of the people who might not be murdered if there is a death penalty to deter potential murderers. How would you like to be someone who was murdered, but who would not have been murdered if there had been a death penalty. "Hard cheese"?
 
 

 
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