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Once they've died in prison there isn't much to be done either.
According to the DOJ the average time from conviction to execution is 198 months - about 16 years. People in prison serving life without parole routinely spend more than that in jail. If you can see that a longer timeline increases the probability of undoing an injustice there's really no point in continuing this line of discussion.
That pretty much answers my question, doesn't it.
I don't need a "study" to tell me that punishment doesn't deter all crime. Nor do I need a "study" to tell me that no executed murderer has ever murdered again.
Good point. I don't need a study to tell me that innocent people that are executed will never murder even once.
Absolutely true. The same goes for people who die in prison after having been wrongfully convicted.
It's one risk against another. Why would one be more controllable than another?
True but Life in prison is not always the fitting of punishment for certain crimes.
So according to you the justice system will always achieve a dependable result in the case of people sentenced to prison but not in the case of people sentenced to die. In one case there is infallibility and in another there isn't. Pretty illogical.
I am not pleading for "killing everybody", just for being reasonable. And it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that some people commit crimes that warrant the death penalty.
Yes I am concerned about that but in rare cases where it's a slam dunk case the person did it and it's a horrendous crime then the person doesn't deserve to live. Raping and then burning to death a little girl as one poster gave as an example is just the kind of crime where I don't feel anything for that person and hope they burn to death as well. I can be compassionate until someone tortures and kills human beings for their own sick pleasure.
I think some people may desire the death of people. But if one is going to be reasonable, they need to weight the pros and cons of having the death penalty and see what it adds to the justice system. Our DP adds nothing of value. It costs way more to kill a man than to keep him in prison for the rest of his life. We are always hearing about DP cases being overturned or people being found innocent, it's inherently flawed. It doesn't provide deterrent to crime, it offers no additional safety to the Public over Life w/o Parole.
One may want to kill another person, think their crime is so heinous that they need to die, but our system is built upon imperfect knowledge and the cost and failure modes of the DP far outweigh any potential gain from it.
The DP is an irrational system.
No. According to me the justice system will always get some cases wrong. Not executing people minimizes to the extent possible the cost of getting it wrong.
Then let's not pretend this has anything to do with the protection of innocent people, alright?
Contrary to you I feel innocent people should be protected from murderers, yes.
The protection of innocent people (future victims of murderers) isn't what's really desired by people who advocate for the death penalty, but rather the sense that justice has been done. This is demonstrated by their constant need to play to people's emotions by mentioning in detail a list of horrible crimes, and their utterly cavalier attitude at the fact that innocent people have been sent to death row numerous times already. If they were truly worried about the innocent then they'd be against the death penalty.
So where's your concern for innocent people who have been sent to death row?
It is in the same place with my concern for people who have died in prison innocently.
Your concern for innocent people is in a cold, dark place?
Not really. More in a rational, logical place.
I don't desire the death of anyone. But some people pose such an unacceptable risk to society that they deserve to be executed.
It is not so that the death penalty is more expensive than keeping somebody in jail for 50+ years. The "studies" that purport to demonstrate that do not take into account the full cost of housing, feeding, guarding, taking medical care of, etc somebody for all that time, let alone the cost of all the legal proceedings somebody can institute during such a period of time. That being said, coast is not a serious consideration or argument in this matter.
Human justice, like everything human, is imperfect. That doesn't mean we have to abandon it.
So you feel that it was very wrong to execute the commander of Auschwitz, right?
Life in prison without parole removes that risk to society. So it seems that we can accomplish this without the use of the DP
Actually, the calculations entail everything. The trials alone cost about 1 million dollars more for a DP case. Housing a DP inmate is much more expensive as well. In California, for instance, the annual cost of DP was about 137 million while it's annual cost for Life in Prison was 11.5 million. That includes keeping them and housing them and feeding them.
So as we can clearly see, the DP has significantly higher costs associated with it.
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As I demonstrated this is simply not true. Are you arguing people should be locked up in their cel 24/7 for the rest of their life and never be allowed to come into physical contact with anybody, not even for medical reasons?
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