Capital Punishment: For or Against?

As much as I deteste many criminals for their acts, I cannot sanction the state to kill. Simple as that.

well I would never "stand by" something like the death penalty or put any real hope or faith in it, however I don't begrudge those who support it and would never want to be in the shoes of a crime victim's loved ones

Not so, Rob, because no justice system can ever be perfect, and you can undo a life sentence by letting someone out of jail. You can't undo death, and I can't tolerate a single innocent person being killed. In fact, I believe the Supreme Court said that innocent people have never been killed, but if one were that would be cause to rethink it. It is entirely possible I made that last sentence up.

For any crime for which the death penalty could be given, perhaps complete banishment from society would be a good solution.

Henry Plainview wrote: No, you can't give him his year back, but you can give him some money as an apology, and isn't being able to undo part of it far superior to not being able undo any of it? The implementation of things is important because you have to take into account flawed/evil human beings. See: communism.   Banishing people seems like asking for trouble.

I'm not sure any amount of money could serve as a recompense for the missed years of my family's company were I wrongfully convicted.

In that light...I consider our soldiers...but at least they are noble.

And Henry, if you want to take into consideration the implementation of things because we must "take into account flawed/evil human beings," then we may as well erupt into utter anarchy.  Oh wait. 

Edit: Basically, we didn't throw out having a President because Presidents have let us down.  We have ideals, and state them, and deal with the inevitable bullsh*t as it comes up.


Edited by Epignosis - November 26 2009 at 21:53

A Person wrote: I am against capital punishment, although a life sentence is as good as death anyway.

Unless you are the one paying for it.

Despite my being a hard line liberal, more or less down the line, I used to support the death penalty.
Now, well...I don't know.
I used to think of it as simply as, if you kill someone the only punishment worthy of taking a life is losing yours.

As I got older it became alot more complicated than that. From a lot of different angles.

I'm quite confused on this matter and don't have a clear answer. Though I tend to favor the abolition of death penalty, I sometimes think it is necessary. There are people who will just not change, ever. And whose contributions to society can only be chaos and death.

On this matter, I just don't know.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: I don't trust the State with taxing it citizens let alone killing them, although it is adept at both. Regardless of innocent people being executed or not, I don't believe it to be moral or within the realm of powers that should be given to the State.

 

Definitely not an easy one - there have been so many mis-carriages of justice in my living memory which pre abolition would have led to the death penalty; the Birmingham six spring to mind as an example - jailed in 1975 for the Birmingham pub bombings & released as innocent men in 1991; these men would have been hanged a decade earlier

Problem is, there are so many crimes you see perpetrated where guilt is 100% proven, part of my brain tends toward acceptance of the death penalty, though not publicly; that just smacks of revenge, not justice.

As I say, not an easy one