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Capital Punishment - Justified in some cases?

Capital Punishment - just punishment in some cases?

  • Yes, for the most heinous crimes it is a just punishment

    Votes: 14 51.9%

  • No, there is never a crime that would warrant taking another's life

    Votes: 7 25.9%

  • Other - please expound

    Votes: 5 18.5%

  • There is no death penalty in my country - instead there is...... *explain*

    Votes: 1 3.7%
  • Total voters
    27

TheGirlNextDoor

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Basic question - Is capital punishment a just punishment in some cases?

I specifically don't want to talk about whether or not it's a deterrent, I believe there is no real deterrent effect to having the death penalty as a possible punishment... I just want to know what others think insofar as it being a JUST punishment for some crimes.

Thoughts?
 
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In state justice no.
Basically the state has every incentive to kill of the accused just in case it was wrong.


With vigilante justice sometimes.
Sometimes justice needs to be dealt by individuals when the state system doesn't want to.
 
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You can't ignore the deterrent part though. It might be just (in the sense of justifiable) only because of the deterrent effect, if it exists.

We shouldn't make penalties based on some high-minded notion of justice anyways. Penalties are deterrents. Period.
 

I don't think someone would avoid committing a heinous crime because they suddenly realize, "Oh ****. I might be sentenced to death, therefore I won't follow through with this..."

I don't think criminals period, think about the consequences of their crimes if caught. I believe they truly think they will get away with it. Otherwise, why would anyone attempt a crime of any caliber?
 

Think of it this way: if the penalty for rape is the same thing as the penalty for murder, then someone who rapes his victim won't really feel the need to keep her alive. Whereas if killing her will get him killed, he has much less of an incentive to kill her, since even if he tries not to get caught, there's always a chance that he will.

If penalties don't disincentivize crime, then there's no reason to have any laws at all.
Yes, criminals now often try not to think about the consequences... but that's because there are consequences that prevent any other type of person from wanting to do such a thing.
 
So since deterrence came up, I decided to look and see what I found.

Deterrence (In Support of the Death Penalty)

Deterrence (In Opposition to the Death Penalty)

Basic answer...no one really knows. Another page on that site comes down to the data is flawed in the studies, who knows.

As far as the original question, this is another one of those questions that I go round and round with myself. I don't like the death penalty, I think in the US we should not take the chance of accidentally executing the innocent(are legal system is supposed to protect the innocent), I think as punishment goes, life in prison is probably worse. Then I hear about some godawful case of some one raping and killing little kids or whatever, and I am ready to push the switch myself. SO basically, I am glad it's not up to me whether it's legal or not.
 
As redress suggests, evidence is sketchy on both sides, with a little more suggesting that it's not as effective as people want it to be. Having said that, I'm still in favor of it except for one thing - it is more expensive (because of appeals and what-not) to kill someone than to keep them in prison for the rest of their natural lives.

If you can cheapen it and speed it up, I'm all about it.
 
TheGirlNextDoor said:
I don't think criminals period, think about the consequences of their crimes if caught. I believe they truly think they will get away with it. Otherwise, why would anyone attempt a crime of any caliber?
Click to expand...

Like my friend who works in a local prison facility said, when I asked what most of the inmates are in for, "They are all innocent. Just ask them." Iow, they did nothing wrong.:mrgreen:
 
I don't have a problem with the death penalty for someone who has been convicted of murder without any doubt whatsoever.

As for prisons in general, I think they should be be much less desirable places to go. Take away the Cable, the computers, and the gyms. Make hard labor a requirement. Many in the prison population have a better life incarcerated than they do on the streets.
 
You cannot remove practical considerations when determining justice. Speeding isn't an immoral act, but setting speed limits mitigates accidents. I consider the death penalty to be a sentence that is impossible to reserve and thus extremely expensive. That makes it a poor choice for most criminal cases like murder rape ect. Getting emotional about a particularly nasty criminal is poor justification for the penalty. However, in certain capital crimes like treason and terrorism it has practical uses.

If I was setting policy on the death penalty, I'd ban it except for serious federal crimes that have a serious impact on a national level. For example, if we someone managed to catch OBL, I would consider it appropriate to execute him.
 

Absolutely. Teleological ethics. The consequences of an act determines whether an act is good or evil. The consequence of the death penalty results in the death of a horrible criminal. It is just.
 

Most criminals who perform heinous crimes on a regular basis are not deterred by the death penalty because they some criminals (hitmen, drug dealers, etc.) risk death in their illegal activities anyways, so it doesn't really matter who puts them to death, the state or their criminal rivals.

Those who perform a single or spree heinous crime are not deterred by the death penalty because they're performing a crime of passion and not thinking straight anyways, so it's not going to deter him.

I don't know how this would be placed in your poll, but I don't agree with the death penalty because it can too often be used by the state to put to death innocent people or is used too selectively, such as more on minorities.
 
Flea said:
The consequence of the death penalty results in the death of a horrible criminal. It is just.
Click to expand...

Except when it results in the death of someone convicted and punished of a crime he didn't commit.
 
samsmart said:
Except when it results in the death of someone convicted and punished of a crime he didn't commit.
Click to expand...

True. With todays DNA though, this happens less and less. Even people that were locked up before are being let off. Mistakes are very very rare now, and to be honest, innocent people die every day. I would rather have 1 innicent person die and have 9,999 guilty murdering rapist scumbags die, and I bet that the numbers aren't even that close.
 



I could care less if it is a deterrent or not. I see it as a ultimate punishment for committing a heinous act. I am also think it is seriously ****ed up to tell the victim's loved ones that they for the rest of their loved one's murderer's life have to support that scumbag.Yeah we know he killed your loved one, but now you get to provide him with 3 meals a day,free medical care, roof, room and board and many other things for the rest of his natural life and while your loved is in the ground rotting he gets to watch cable tv, get a free education, and many other things.


The only the death penalty could really be an effective deterrent is if executions were televised and swift.Because usually what happens is someone is given a **** load of appeals and that individual ends up staying alive for at least a decade or two before fnally being executed behind closed door. By then everyone has forgotten about the murderer's victim and most people have forgotten about the murderer except for scumbag sympathizers who do not want to see him executed.
 

Again, I'm not really interested in the detterent factor of the death penalty - more about the justification for putting someone to death - is that a just punishment in some cases.

Your last paragraph - are you saying you believe that sentencing would be abused? The reason putting someone to death is so costly is because of the appeals process thats put in place to keep innocents from being executed. So do you believe that innocents are often executed? I've heard of it happening, but with modern technologies, I would think that wouldn't be as much of an issue than it used to be.

As far as the assertion that minorities would be more prone to receiving a sentencing of death? How do you come to that opinion - or am I reading you wrong.
 
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Did you click on the poll to see who voted which way? Just curious.
 
I see both sides of the capital punishment debate. No i dont think it is a deterrant. I the eye for an eye side of it..and does a person who murders someone deserve to have that same punishment, part of me says yes. But I also have a side of me that says... killing is killing. Thou shalt not kill, if someone does, killing them back isn't going to take away what they have done. So I guess I am not really sure how I feel on that issue for sure.

But i do know this. It's very sad that we as a family have to struggle to put food on the table, a roof over our families head, and that my daughter's medication has to wait until we can get her back on our insurance since she turned 19 in November. But hey, we can go out and kill someone and have a roof over our heads, free cable, a full belly three times daily, and free medical care. Something is definitely not right about this picture.
 

As in is it moral? No, it's not. It's state sponsored killing; nothing moral about that.
 
Yes, I believe it's a just punishment if the crime is heinous enough. And it's the only way to be absolutely certain that person will never again commit another crime.
 
I voted "other."

There are crimes that certainly justify it.

But do I trust the legal system to make that decision? Do I think that it is never wrong? Absolutely not.

Therefore I am against capital punishment.

I always find it funny when certain people who think that the government is too big, too powerful, incompetent and corrupt and can't do anything right have no problem giving the government the power over life and death.
 
Had to give it a big "NO!"

Only Barbarians take lives in their justice systems. The court system's buffoonery, makes them imagine that they are helping to solve crimes, defendants be damned.
 
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We don't have the death penalty. We have life in prison for the most heinous crimes.

Sometimes I get an emotional reaction when I read about certain horrific crimes and think that person deserves to die, but if it came down to a vote to reinstate the death penalty in my country I'd vote no. I think death is not punishment enough for the kinds of crimes that sometimes make me reconsider my position on the issue.

If the intent is to remove the person from society, life in prison is more than an adequate solution. If the intent is to punish the perpetrator for his crimes, death is not enough.
 
Indeed! Dying is one way to escape prison.
 
The biggest viewpoint behind the "death penalty" is the idea that life after death is worse than life in jail. Its a religious thing.

The problem is this; where is the f*cking proof?

Until we can document the fact that there is "punishment" after death, putting criminals in jail is the most just thing we can do.

This is another problem with that extremely conservative view of this issue. Take my hometown of Texas :doh. They claim to be "pro-life" when they end up killing criminals. Its hypocrisy in its highest form.

We become just as bad as those criminals when we do this. If this doesn't work for you, I think the system from Minority Report should suffice.
 
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