Thoughts on the death penalty?

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Professor S

I think your view of prison is a bit rose colored. I'd rather not have to join a racial gang to avoid being sexually abused and/or traded around by other inmates, worrying about whether or not I'm going to get beat up, raped or stabbed on any given day. I'd taher not go though the mental torment of watching my family's utter and complete shame in me and then watch as they grow more distant and finally (hopefully) disappear.

So you'd chose to die instead of going to prison for life?

I guess in the end, the death penalty has proven itself to have zero effect as a deterrent (violent crime and murder rates have risen over time and use of the death penalty), so what is the point of the action? Once again, you can have someone put away for life with the same effect (he/she never commits the crime again). Anything else is a grotesque vengeance fantasy, IMO, and one where mistakes can and will be made.

Violent crime has been rising period. The death penalty isn't going to change that. The point of it is to punish people for the crimes that they commit. Life sentances hasn't helped the situation any more then the death penalty has.

If you want to talk about deterrants preventing death, lets talk about war. If death cannot be justified under our system of law in our own country, what gives us the right to go out and kill other people in other countries for their international crimes? (Or for simply standing in the way of us getting the people who commited it) Is this because a millitary works as a deterrent, and it actually lowers the amount of fighting that happens in the world?

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

So you'd chose to die instead of going to prison for life?

No, I'd rather die than go to prison for life. I would not choose to die, but I'd rather be dead. But thats just me, and I would not impose that on another human or state that they should have the same opinion.

Violent crime has been rising period. The death penalty isn't going to change that. The point of it is to punish people for the crimes that they commit. Life sentances hasn't helped the situation any more then the death penalty has.

Exactly, so why choose the option that is irreversable if the guilty is proven over time to be innocent? Punishment on any level hasn't proven to be a deterrent in violent crime so in the end you can lock up someone to prevent them from killing, or kill them out of anger and vengeance. I choose the less destructive and reversible option.

If you want to talk about deterrants preventing death, lets talk about war. If death cannot be justified under our system of law in our own country, what gives us the right to go out and kill other people in other countries for their international crimes? (Or for simply standing in the way of us getting the people who commited it) Is this because a millitary works as a deterrent, and it actually lowers the amount of fighting that happens in the world?

No, as I said, killing is justified if it is in self-defence. Now we can argue whether or not all wars have been fought our of self-defence, but that does not alter the fact that wars can and are often fought justly if only for self-preservation. Of course pre-emptive self-defence always brings it's own dubious and vague definitions of morality. Now I can see this easily degrading into a Iraq war tangent. so lets avoid that and keep the discussion high level, shall we?

If one side is morally wrong for attacking another country and it's people, then to defend oneself against their attackers must be morally right.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Professor S

No, I'd rather die than go to prison for life. I would not choose to die, but I'd rather be dead. But thats just me, and I would not impose that on another human or state that they should have the same opinion.

Though I understand what you're saying, for the sake of the arguement lets look at it for what it is. In the end, you would chose life in prison over death, period. Because life in prison is the preferable option to most men then death is. If death was the lesser penalty, then you would chose to die.

There are men who really would chose to die, however. But if they chose to die, and the family of the victim wants them to die.. and equal punishment for their crime is to have them die... why would we waste space and money keeping them alive?

Exactly, so why choose the option that is irreversable if the guilty is proven over time to be innocent? Punishment on any level hasn't proven to be a deterrent in violent crime so in the end you can lock up someone to prevent them from killing, or kill them out of anger and vengeance. I choose the less destructive and reversible option.

That's why I said before that it should only be done if there's video evidence or if its some type of public display. I agree with you when it comes to crimes where there's no solid evidence.. but when it comes to crimes where there is such evidence.. why should we waste the money to keep that person alive?

No, as I said, killing is justified if it is in self-defence. Now we can argue whether or not all wars have been fought our of self-defence, but that does not alter the fact that wars can and are often fought justly if only for self-preservation. After all, if one side is morally wrong for attacking another country and it's people, then to defend oneself against their attackers must be morally right. Now I can see this easily degrading into a Iraq war tangent. so lets avoid that and keep the discussion high level, shall we?

How do you define self defense? In your opinion, what does an enemy have to do to justify a war with the united states? And keep in mind, the moment you make the decision to go to war, you are sentancing thousands of people to death (your own people and others) by simply going there.

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Dylflon

In the future, death row convicts will fight in gladiator arenas for our amusement.

Go ahead. Quote me on that.

I've always believed this is the answer. Death Row island....the real reality show. We just place health packs and weapons and ammo in strategic locations on the island and set up some cameras....

Originally Posted by TheGame

I would disagree completly. You can't honestly say that you'd chose to die over sitting in a cell for the rest of yor life getting free (and instant) medical care, free food, and still being able to socialize. (You'd even get to see your wife/kids again, isn't that enough worth living for?) Now if the prisons were actually tougher by nature, and were a form of torture in a way... then I could see how someone would chose to die. But these days you still have a life, even behind bars.

I'd look into maximum security prison a bit more. It's more like solitary confinement most of the time, exercising in a 8x8 courtyard with no equipment for 30 minutes by yourself, having your food passed through a metal box Hannibal Lecter style (and it's not good food), getting your medication (if not voluntarily by force). These prisons have swat teams for cell extractions, they'll bag your head so you can't spit, pin you down and beat the shit out of you if you don't cooperate, and yeah. It's not a cool place to be. I believe restrictions get loosened a bit for good behavior, and I think it varies from psychiatric disorder and degree of murder.

Otherwise, I'll let you and Prof S carry on.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

Though I understand what you're saying, for the sake of the arguement lets look at it for what it is. In the end, you would chose life in prison over death, period. Because life in prison is the preferable option to most men then death is. If death was the lesser penalty, then you would chose to die.

No, you misunderstand my argument completely. I would rather be dead than live in prison, but I would not kill myself because THAT IS NOT MINE TO TAKE. No life is man's to take except in self-defense, IMO, and includes our own.

There are men who really would chose to die, however. But if they chose to die, and the family of the victim wants them to die.. and equal punishment for their crime is to have them die... why would we waste space and money keeping them alive?

Because that is not ours to take except in self-defense. My argument is is not an argument based in economics (the horror of economics being a factor in choosing the death penalty scares me to death), its based in morality and philosophy.

That's why I said before that it should only be done if there's video evidence or if its some type of public display. I agree with you when it comes to crimes where there's no solid evidence.. but when it comes to crimes where there is such evidence.. why should we waste the money to keep that person alive?

Because that life is not ours to take, and to be quite simple about it, two wrongs do not make a right. But thats just my opinion and in the end this is a subjective argument. My main objection to man believing they can make life and death decisions is that is cheapens our value of life overall and makes us believe we can engineer or euthanize our way to a better society, and I think that is a slippery slope.

How do you define self defense? In your opinion, what does an enemy have to do to justify a war with the united states? And keep in mind, the moment you make the decision to go to war, you are sentancing thousands of people to death (your own people and others) by simply going there.

Well thats a difficult question. Fighting an aggressor is always justified, IMO, such as the Allies fighting against the Axis in WW2 or the US invading Afghanistan after 9/11. I don't think anyone can argue against that. It's when a country acts in preemptive self-defense that the moral lines blur considerably, and quite ironically, these actions in theory are to prevent another WW2/Nazi terror. The vague and dubious area of preemptive self-defense is that we'll never know if it worked because if the action it prevents the justifying evidence from ever existing. We'll never definitively know whether or not the Iraq War was truly justified because we'll never know the alternative.

[TheGame]

So what it boils down to is morality, and you just have a different set of values then I do. "That life is not mine to take" is not a good arguement in my opinion. I think the fact of the matter is that keeping a man in a cage for the rest of their life is a less efficient way of handling punishment then the death penalty is.

While I agree in cases in which there is no 110% solid evidence that proves the person took another life (or multiple other lives) that they should be put in prison, I disagree with the fact that the death penalty is something that's immoral.

When the person who is killed decided to kill an innocent baby, mother, daughter, brother, sister, cousin, nephew, niece, etc they took their own life in my book. That's where I moraly stand on it.

As far as the effects of the death penalty.. I think when handled correctly it makes much more since then keeping a person alive who we're never going to let go anyway. Why waste the space, money, and time keeping this person alive when they didn't do the same for some innocent victim?

And lastly, I think its hipocracy to say "that life is not ours to take" to any crime that a person commits in the US, but still have the ability to justify a war that's not fought on your home turf. I belive in either case that some actions need retaliations. And sometimes I feel like its worth dying, and worth killing to punish people for crimes that they commit.

[BlueFire]

I find this discussion to be quite interesting and I have two questions:

1) TheGame, if I remember correctly, you are a Christian, right? How do you reconcile your Christian beliefs with your approval of the death penalty (if you are a Christian)?

2) Bringing economics back into this (sorry, Prof ), is the death penalty really a wiser choice? According to ACLU in their "Case against the Death Penalty,"

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT COSTS MORE THAN INCARCERATION

It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, on the assumption that life imprisonment is more expensive than execution. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, however, just the reverse is true. "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment."56 A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs – including the time of judges, prosecutors, public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs – are mostly borne by the taxpayer. A 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison.57

In Maryland, a comparison of capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years 1979-1984 concluded that a death penalty case costs "approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a non-death sentence."58 In 1988 and 1989 the Kansas legislature voted against reinstating the death penalty after it was informed that reintroduction would involve a first-year cost of "more than $11 million."59 Florida, with one of the nation's most populous death rows, has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence."60

A 1993 study of the costs of North Carolina's capital punishment system revealed that litigating a murder case from start to finish adds an extra $163,000 to what it would cost the state to keep the convicted offender in prison for 20 years. The extra cost goes up to $216,000 per case when all first-degree murder trials and their appeals are considered, many of which do not end with a death sentence and an execution.61

From one end of the country to the other public officials decry the additional cost of capital cases even when they support the death penalty system. "Wherever the death penalty is in place, it siphons off resources which could be going to the front line in the war against crime…. Politicians could address this crisis, but, for the most part they either endorse executions or remain silent."62 The only way to make the death penalty more "cost effective" than imprisonment is to weaken due process and curtail appellate review, which are the defendant's (and society's) only protection against the most aberrant miscarriages of justice. Any savings in dollars would, of course, be at the cost of justice: In nearly half of the death-penalty cases given review under federal habeas corpus provisions, the murder conviction or death sentence was overturned.63

In 1996, in response to public clamor for accelerating executions, Congress imposed severe restrictions on access to federal habeas corpus64 and also ended all funding of the regional death penalty "resource centers" charged with providing counsel on appeal in the federal courts.65These restrictions virtually guarantee that the number and variety of wrongful murder convictions and death sentences will increase. The savings in time and money will prove to be illusory.

You can check their sources in the end notes.

Anyway.. thoughts?

[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by takegiantsteps

1) TheGame, if I remember correctly, you are a Christian, right? How do you reconcile your Christian beliefs with your approval of the death penalty (if you are a Christian)?

I'll answer that. The Old Testament frowns upon murder (hence the Commandment) but it actually suggests the death penalty (or punishment of death) for acts of Adultery, Bestiality, and yes, Murder.

The New Testament doesn't explicitly say as far as I know, and the message (Jesus' message) is mostly love and happy times.

There's a reason hardcore Islamic countries still stone people to death for having affairs and stuff; because it's in the theology. =/

I'd say it is fairly open-ended. I don't know what the Catholic (or Pope's) position is. I never really asked and the topic never came up during church. I suppose the issue depends on who you are and how you want to interpret the Bible and your faith.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by takegiantsteps

I find this discussion to be quite interesting and I have two questions:

1) TheGame, if I remember correctly, you are a Christian, right? How do you reconcile your Christian beliefs with your approval of the death penalty (if you are a Christian)?

http://www.gotquestions.org/death-penalty.html

The only reason I'm using that site is because I didn't feel like digging up the info myself. But the bible does support giving the right for people to execute others for commiting crimes. Though this point is one of the many things in the bible that can be read both ways, and can be used by either side to justify or to not justify capital punishment.

In this case I'm using my own judgement. I don't feel like the death penalty is a happy thing, however I feel like it is a nessicary thing to have to keep people's morals in check. Just as I don't think war is a happy thing, but I still think that it is nessicary to prevent your home land from being made vunerable to attacks.

And to me it simply makes more sense then locking someone away forever.

2) Bringing economics back into this (sorry, Prof ), is the death penalty really a wiser choice? According to ACLU in their "Case against the Death Penalty,"

Yeah I'm well aware of the facts presented in that article, which is why I feel the system as it is now is broken.. To quote myself:

"Here's what I think the solutions would be:
1) Death penalty should only be reserved for crimes that are public displays, and that are caught on tape. And when its sentanced it should hapen quickly, instead of allowing the govt to waste tons of money on keeping them on death row."

The death penalty, as handled by most states that have it, I disagree with right now. But I don't disagree with the overall concept of executing someone for a crime that they commit.

-EDIT-

I'd also toss in the fact that, depending on the crime.. if a person takes ownership of it and its bad enough. I'd still give them the death penalty even without sufficient evidence. If we captured Osama Bin Laden right now, and he swears he wasn't the one behind 9-11 and other attacks, then I'd toss him in prison for the rest of his life. If he claims he was behind it, and doesn't really have and remorse for what he did, then in the words of movie directors... "That's a wrap"

[KillerGremlin]

TheGame, I'd like you to humor my question if you do not mind.

Being a supporter of the death penalty, would you tie the noose? That is to say, do you consider it your duty to provide the service of keeping an even moral slate in our society? Should the executioner be similar to the civil servant in Jury Duty position?

If you had the switch and Bin Laden, would you pull it?

[BlueFire]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

I'll answer that. The Old Testament frowns upon murder (hence the Commandment) but it actually suggests the death penalty (or punishment of death) for acts of Adultery, Bestiality, and yes, Murder.

The New Testament doesn't explicitly say as far as I know, and the message (Jesus' message) is mostly love and happy times.

There's a reason hardcore Islamic countries still stone people to death for having affairs and stuff; because it's in the theology. =/

I'd say it is fairly open-ended. I don't know what the Catholic (or Pope's) position is. I never really asked and the topic never came up during church. I suppose the issue depends on who you are and how you want to interpret the Bible and your faith.

The Catholic view:

In Evangelium Vitae, the Church teaches that capital punishment should be avoided unless it is the only way to defend society from the offender in question, and that with today's penal system such a situation requiring an execution is either rare or non-existent.[87] The Catechism of the Catholic Church holds a similar view

..thank you, Wikipedia.

Christians supporting the death penalty doesn't make a lot of sense to me. In my ~*~amazing Catholic upbringing~*~, it felt more like you could learn more from the New Testament than the Old Testament. Believing in the values Jesus Christ taught and supporting the death penalty.. seems like a big joke.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

So what it boils down to is morality, and you just have a different set of values then I do. "That life is not mine to take" is not a good arguement in my opinion. I think the fact of the matter is that keeping a man in a cage for the rest of their life is a less efficient way of handling punishment then the death penalty is.

While I agree in cases in which there is no 110% solid evidence that proves the person took another life (or multiple other lives) that they should be put in prison, I disagree with the fact that the death penalty is something that's immoral.

When the person who is killed decided to kill an innocent baby, mother, daughter, brother, sister, cousin, nephew, niece, etc they took their own life in my book. That's where I moraly stand on it.

Then thats just a simple disagreement on a subjective topic, which is why I think Bond and I both maintain that this should be a states rights issue.

And lastly, I think its hipocracy to say "that life is not ours to take" to any crime that a person commits in the US, but still have the ability to justify a war that's not fought on your home turf. I belive in either case that some actions need retaliations. And sometimes I feel like its worth dying, and worth killing to punish people for crimes that they commit.

I'm not sure how my statements were hipocritical when I made efforts to explain that pre-emtive self-defense is a morally dubious activity. And to use your own terminology, was the US's involvement in the European theater in WW2 immoral? We certainly were not on our home turf by any means. We were across the Atlantic, and Germany never ever attacked the US!

Of course it was moral because to do nothing ran the risk of an openly agressive Nazi Germany ruling Europe and Asia and in the position to threaten the US and the rest of the free world, exterminating who they pleaed along the way. This is why preemption is so muddled... you'll never know the moral consequence of the alternative because it was never given the option of existing.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by KillerGremlin

TheGame, I'd like you to humor my question if you do not mind.

Being a supporter of the death penalty, would you tie the noose? That is to say, do you consider it your duty to provide the service of keeping an even moral slate in our society? Should the executioner be similar to the civil servant in Jury Duty position?

If you had the switch and Bin Laden, would you pull it?

If he was tried and found guilty in a court of law, yes I would.

A lot of people don't have the nerve to do it, but I've had friends (and one family member) who we're killed before. I've sat with families who had to grieve the loss of their children, and been to funerals that shouldn't have happend as soon as they did. Mentally, all I'd have to do is think about the looks on those people's faces, and multiply it by the amount of lives that man has taken.

With that said, it shouldn't be like jury duty. It would take a person who understands what his affect on people really was.. Not some person who isn't in touch with reality.

[TheGame]

Originally Posted by Professor S

Then thats just a simple disagreement on a subjective topic, which is why I think Bond and I both maintain that this should be a states rights issue.

I can agree to that.

I'm not sure how my statements were hipocritical when I made efforts to explain that pre-emtive self-defense is a morally dubious activity. And to use your own terminology, was the US's involvement in the European theater in WW2 immoral? We certainly were not on our home turf by any means. We were across the Atlantic, and Germany never ever attacked the US!

Of course it was moral because to do nothing ran the risk of an openly agressive Nazi Germany ruling Europe and Asia and in the position to threaten the US and the rest of the free world, exterminating who they pleaed along the way. This is why preemption is so muddled... you'll never know the moral consequence of the alternative because it was never given the option of existing.

I still think its hipocritical from a moral standpoint to universaly say that the death penalty is wrong to do in all cases, and then support and pre-emtive war effort. Because in one case you're saying killing a single person for their crimes is wrong, and in the other case you're saying killing thousands of people for crimes they haven't commited yet, but simply "threaten" to commit is ok. And EVEN IF the country in question commited international crimes, its still hipocritical to say you'd kill them but not kill a single person who is found guilty here.

[Professor S]

Originally Posted by TheGame

Because in one case you're saying killing a single person for their crimes is wrong, and in the other case you're saying killing thousands of people for crimes they haven't commited yet, but simply "threaten" to commit is ok.

No, I did not say that it's ok, I said it's a difficult and morally dubious question. You're beginning to fall back into the habit of putting words in my mouth. The fact that preemptive war is not clear cut does not make it right, but it also does not make it wrong. It depends on the situation and evidence provided as to whether or not one can argue preemptive war is a moral good.

After all, if you could go back in time and kill Hitler/thousands of his supporters before he becomes Chancellor, would that be murder or would that be defending the lives of millions of innocent people who he would have killed? That is th exact question that preemption attempts to answer but can never fully answer because time machines do not exist and we cannot see the reality that the action has prevented, if it prevented anything at all.

And EVEN IF the country in question commited international crimes, its still hipocritical to say you'd kill them but not kill a single person who is found guilty here.

It's not hipocritical if it is in the defense of life, which is what most arguments for preemption are based in. My full argument is that killing is immoral except in the defense of human life. To attack an innocent is immoral, but to defend oneself against agression is a moral imperative, IMO.