The Death Penalty

[RebelWithanAK]

Of course, I am anti-DP, but I do have this to say about your argument:

1) In the two "extremes" you give, you are far more towards the former than the middle. Televised executions? Dungeons and an expanded DP? Man, I wouldn't want to live in a state where you're governor.
2) Doing hard hard time is not going to make anybody think twice about committing crime. Hell, DP didn't make anybody think twice about committing crime. No matter how harsh the punishment, most people do not expect to be caught.
3) You seem to ignore Life Meaning Life in your list of choices, which would certainly help dealings with retrials down the line after new evidence has been found.
4) You seem to ignore mistrials and biased judges, courts, juries. Bobby Seale, 1971, for example.

[castille]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by
Doing hard hard time is not going to make anybody think twice about committing crime. Hell, DP didn&#39;t make anybody think twice about committing crime. No matter how harsh the punishment, most people do not expect to be caught<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>


In that case....make it known those people can be caught. Technology can analyse a single breath particle to identify someone....make it known the law will use those to identify and exterminate criminals. Use cameras, offer rewards for ratting out criminals.

There is no real law, however, that can deal with mentally unstable criminals. They CAN&#39;T be discouraged from crime....best to kill them quickly and prevent future crimes.

Weren&#39;t many criminals in Stalin&#39;s Russia, was there? Fear is a bigger motivator than pleasure (people prefer NOT to lose &#036;10,000 rather than get &#036;100,000).

[The Fyrdman]

</span><blockquote><span class="smallfont">Quote:</span><hr size="1" />Originally Posted by (RebelWithanAK,)
Of course, I am anti-DP, but I do have this to say about your argument:

1) In the two "extremes" you give, you are far more towards the former than the middle. Televised executions? Dungeons and an expanded DP? Man, I wouldn&#39;t want to live in a state where you&#39;re governor.
2) Doing hard hard time is not going to make anybody think twice about committing crime. Hell, DP didn&#39;t make anybody think twice about committing crime. No matter how harsh the punishment, most people do not expect to be caught.
3) You seem to ignore Life Meaning Life in your list of choices, which would certainly help dealings with retrials down the line after new evidence has been found.
4) You seem to ignore mistrials and biased judges, courts, juries. Bobby Seale, 1971, for example.<hr size="1" /></blockquote><span class='postcolor'>

Now I came to this last night when I was drunk, and I didn&#39;t read DP as death penalty, but as double penetration. If there is anything that would stop me committing a crime it is the thought of being dp&#39;d by a couple of big guys. Cruel and unusual but it would damn well stop any crime that was one of passion.

[Mia]

Sorry to go on about this, but if you are referring to the US specifically, then this is not a valid argument. It costs considerably more to execute a prisoner than it does to imprison them for life. This is based on their time on death row vs general population in a maximum security prison. These costs could be reduced by shortening the appeals process (hence reducing the time on death row), but this would increase the number of "innocent prisoners ... being executed - which is absolutely not acceptable."

<edit>
I should give some sort of facts to back up what I have said. I can't find the original sources, but these two pages have information about death penalty costs.
World Policy (about half way down)
Amnesty USA
A brief summary is:
LA County: death penalty costs $ 2 M vs $ 1.4 M for Life Without Parole (LWOP).
Texas: $ 2.3 M for death, about three times the cost of LWOP.
North Carolina: death costs 2.16 M more than LWOP.
Florida: $ 3.2 M for death, $600 K for LWOP.
New York: death is about three times the cost of LWOP.
Similar studies in Kansas and Maryland give similar results.
</edit>

Tman, at least I and Geoff are putting something concrete out to argue with. All you're putting on the table to argue with is your personal opinion.

Care to join in a debate?

[tman_ndsu08]

Again, the "sources" you've posted are from pro rights groups that frankly don't even care to hide their bias.

I'll be happy to join if you ever get any actual sources.

[Samildanach]

Just chip em. any murderer gets a chip implanted in their brain connected to a cyanide capsule. You wouldn't even really have to chip them. Just publicise a few false cases in the paper of people being killed by the chips put them under give them a few scars on their head tell them they have had surgery and if they commit any kind of assault in the future they will be terminated by remote.
Cheapest kind of prison there is, one made in their own mind.

[IndieC]

That is a bit barbaric. The whole point of fighting the death penalty, in my opinion, is so that some miscarriages of justice can be rectified, and people dont die for something they didn't actually do, not to mention that it's called murdering in cold blood under any other circumstances.

What you are saying, Samildanach, is that if they are reported to have commited an assault, they can be terminated just like that, without a trial if they have a chip implanted into them. That is called a dictatorship. Execution without trial, all your rights go out of the window, and you're worse off that the people in Guantanamo Bay.

[tman_ndsu08]

An eye for an eye is the simplest and the fairest form of punishment in the universe. There simply can't be any fairer way to punish someone.

If a person murders another person, they don't deserve to live anymore. Plain and simple.


I understand that wrongful convictions are possible and it is quite tragic when they do happen. But doing away with the fairest punishment for murderers simply because the fear that every now and then one might be convicted wrongfully is ridiculous.

[IndieC]

Wait, are you seriously agreeing with Osama Bin Laden? That is exactly his ideology."Our innocents die, so we kill their innocents." An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for life, from what you are saying. I'm sorry, i can't agree with that. How can the world's largest democracy, a country fighting, supposedly, for others' freedom, suddenly advocate that. Its immoral, and frankly, i dont understand how you can think that way, the same way as a mass murderer, and a terrorist.

[tman_ndsu08]

Killing an innocent person is murder.

An eye for an eye is a basis for punishing murderers. They simply did the punishment for us.

That doesn't mean the murder was justified, obviously, just that they got the punishment they deserved.

[ericsp23]

So if it is later discovered that someone who was executed was, in fact, innocent of the crime he was convicted of, would you advocate the execution of his executioner and anyone else involved in his conviction?
After all you do concede that the killing of an innocent person is murder, so anyone involved in that murder would be subject to the same "eye for an eye" justice.

[IndieC]

Killing an innocent person is murder.
That doesn't mean the murder was justified, obviously, just that they got the punishment they deserved.

So, what you are saying is that you are in favour of unjust punishments, from what i gather.