Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Death Penalty Right or Wrong?

This is quite the serious question, but the topic has come under great debate these past few months here details which I won't entirely go through, but if you're Aussie you'll know what I'm talking about. I was curious as to what you guys thought about the death penalty whether it right or wrong. If so I want to know why, but I would also like to know if you think that if an appeal was launched should the courts overturn the decision and instead give a life-sentence or whatever they think is appropriate.

Having talked it over with a a few of my friends one of whom is a law student and they all say that it is wrong. However, the last person who was sentenced to death here was over 30 years ago (I think I can't exactly rememeber) and so Australia has no death penalty, but I know other countries do and so I'm interested in what you think.

I personally think that the death penalty doesn't solve anything because people still commit the same crimes even with it installed and people knowing the potential punishment certain crimes can be given. However, even though I advocate this I also know that if a final decision has been made it is often hard to get the courts to overturn the ruling, but even saying that I feel that the death penalty doesn't solve anything.

Well, as you may know, some US states have the death penalty and others don't. I remember seeing somewhere statistics that murder/crime rates are lower in states with the death penalty, but I've no idea where -- and I'll grant you that thugs are likely not thinking too much about their long term prospects. There are other murderers, though, who may well decide not to risk it in a state that might end up killing them.

And I'll tell you one thing for certain -- a criminal who's been executed will no longer have *any* chance of doing further harm. Whereas "life sentences" can get bargained down and worked around. Didn't a lot of IRA terrorists get amnestied, after a while, as part of a political deal? It's hard to do that with dead people.

I do believe the state, within the constraints of the justice system, has the moral right to execute criminals, as an exercise in justice and in defence of the state's residents.

Appeals for clemency should be part of the system, though. Is the system perfect? Nope, nothing is. I'm in favor of clear laws universally followed -- but with someone to respond to extraordinary cases. (And to my mind, they would have to be very extraordinary circumstances, not just, 'hey, my client has decided he doesn't want to die.')

I've heard that phrase before, and it's always kinda puzzled me. What would you expect it to solve? It won't magically avert all crimes, no. In individual cases, though, it provides justice, for murderers especially. A murder victim isn't able to sue for clemency. Our courts need to be as absolutely fair as they can manage, but when there's a conflict between the rights of the victim and the rights of the guilty, I've got to side with the victims and their families.

PJ

p.s. <putting on admin hat> This is a controversial topic and emotions can run high, but I trust that we will all endeavor to argue our positions without getting into any sort of name-calling. Right?

Good point, Pam - the admin one, I mean. Yes, a very controversial topic and one where feelings run extremely high.

As some will know, I am completely hostile to the death penalty. I suppose my opposition can be summed up in two reasons, the first most important.

One: two wrongs do not make a 'right'. If killing is wrong, then it's wrong for everyone, and that includes the State.

Two: miscarriages of justice do happen. Where someone's been in prison for years and finally manages to prove their innocence, they can be released. It's not perfect - that person has still suffered. But it's possible to make some amends. If the person was executed, there's nothing anyone can do to put it right.

There are lots of other things I could talk about - debates on statistics which, as we all know, are easy to manipulate and rarely prove anything in either direction; the length of time and cost of keeping someone on Death Row for twenty years or more; whether it's a good thing to encourage victims of crime - who fully deserve support and sympathy - to think of justice in terms of vengeance. But essentially my opposition is summed up in terms of the two points made above.

And I hasten to add that these are my opinions and not a criticism of anyone who disagrees.


Wendy

How did I know you'd jump in here, Wendy?

One comment:

I've never heard it quite that way before. I'm not buying, though -- if taking something without someone's consent is wrong, then it's wrong for everyone, including the State. Yet we still have tons of taxes.

There are things that the State does that individuals may not do.

Imprisoning someone without their consent, for instance. If I tried that, I'd be charged with kidnapping. When the State does it, it's called a jail sentence.

The State has moral bounds, don't get me wrong, but they are *not* identical to the restrictions we place on individuals.

PJ

I find your analogies here a little strange, Pam. As a government governs by concensus, surely that means they have the consent of the people to take taxes from them? They get it from the ballot box when they're voted in. As for kidnapping - it would be called that because you'd be taking an innocent victim who'd broken no laws. Whereas, a jail sentence is something the State imposes on someone who's broken laws. So I'm afraid I'm not buying the connection here.

Leaving aside any moral, ethical considerations etc, my main objection to the death penalty has always been precisely on these grounds that Wendy has already stated.

I simply cannot buy the bizarre logic that you allow someone (the executioner) to kill someone as a response to someone killing someone. To me it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Forget any legal justifications - which is the basis on which you've made your objection above. I can't buy it morally. You simply can't decide that killing someone is wrong and then use killing as a means of punishment. To me, simple logic then dictates that the executioner must themselves be killed because they've taken a life. If taken to its logical conclusion where would it end?

I've never bought the justice angle either. It's never justice. That's impossible to achieve. It's revenge. And what separates us from the animals - usually - is that we should be able to rationalise our way past the kneejerk reactions to some horrific crime, rather than simply going with our basest emotions.

When all's said and done though, I could never support the death penalty so long as the system is fallible. And whenever there is a human element in its constructions its fallible. Many people these days hold up DNA as some magic absolute. But there already dozens of cases in the US where people who have spent years in prison, convicted on DNA, have been released when new evidence comes to light which proves beyond any doubt they didn't commit the crime.

So long as the possiblity exists that an single individual can be wrongly convicted, the death penalty will never be an option for me, personally.

LabRat

Let me see if I can explain further...

Yes, they do -- the consent of a majority. But they won't have universal consent, and if a person says "forget it, I don't want to pay taxes," that person might end up in jail.

In other words, the State has the right to take money or property from someone who does *not* consent. An individual does not have that right.

My point there was that the State is entrusted/empowered to do things that individuals may not do. It's not a one-to-one analogy. So the statement that
just doesn't hold up as a logical argument.

While it is definitely wrong for an individual to murder someone (I'm excluding self-defense, here), that says *nothing* about whether or not it is wrong for the State to do it as well.

On another point, I agree that sometimes innocent people are killed, which is a tragedy and should be strenuously avoided. However, it's also a tragedy if a murderer lives to get out of prison (parole, amnesty, escape) and kills again. You have to weigh both factors, IMO.

We agree that there will never be a perfect system -- human beings aren't really capable of creating 100% accurate systems, certainly not in something as very complex as crime and punishment. My reaction to that is that all we can do is try our hardest to get it right, as often as we possibly can, and accept that sometimes, it will fail. (That's where the clemency plea is important, btw.)

PJ

I am for the death penalty. I believe people who commit pre-meditated violent crimes should no longer have any rights.

Jackie

I can never really be sure where I stand on this issue. I tend to lean towards Wendy and Labrat's reasonings, but not all the time. So, basically, I'm only here to show you guys a phrase from one of my favorite bumper stickers:

Why do we kill people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong?

Sara

I was extremely uneasy when I saw that this topic had been posted, but greatly relieved to see that a courteous, intelligent debate was then unfolding.

I'm opposed to the death penalty, as I'm sure many of you would have guessed.

Jackie, isn't there a gulf of difference between the withdrawal of rights and the deliberate taking of a person's life? Even if the withdrawal of rights includes withdrawal of the right to life, that's still not the same as deliberately taking that life.

Yvonne

But couldn't this argument be applied to the other side as well? In order to make sure that criminals can't commit another crime we lock them up, but sometimes the system fails.

I'd like to believe that someone known to be dangerous will not be put back on the street where they can harm someone else. If prisoners are released it is because it is believed that that they have been rehabilitated. In some cases it's not the case, and the result may be another murder/rape/robbery etc. committed by someone who has been convicted of the same crime before.

The difference in that case is that the criminal is at fault for harming an innocent person and can be held responsible for doing so. While the judicial system may have failed to recognize the danger the perpetrator posed to the public, it is the perpetrator who is directly responsible. In the case of a miscarriage of justice where an innocent person is executed, the state is at fault.

In both cases an innocent person is dead. The difference is that in one case the perpetrator can be punished for the crime in accordance with the law, while in the other case the perpetrator cannot be held responsible in an effective manner and will go on to kill other innocent people (because, as others have pointed out, mistakes will happen). Aside from any kind of questions this poses in regard to morality, it also seriously harms the legitimacy of governmental authority, which is important if a political system is to function properly.

I agree. But as long as mistakes happen, I prefer a system that protects the right of the individual not to be executed for something they did not do.

P.S. After we're done with this debate, I think we should go on to discuss prayer in schools, gay marriage, abortion rights and possibly the war in Iraq .

People who are familiar with my ideology would probably be shocked to find that I chose undecided.

When I hear about a case where someone was brutally murdered, my blood boils and I admittedly go into that "fry the b*****d" mood as clearly that person is no longer human and deserves what he/she gets. That's the emotional argument for the death penalty.

On the other hand, in less emotional moments, I wonder what gives the state the right to take someone's life. Granted the Constitution (for those of us in the US) allows the taking of life with due process, so it's not a question of legality. It's more of a moral argument similar to what Wendy, Labby, and Yvonne and others have argued for.

I do believe the death penalty does work to hold down violent crimes as do other methods like the right to carry concealed weapons. If the goal is to provide safety to the public, it seems that the threat of severe punishment could serve as a deterrent if done correctly. Just ask Singapore about their laws. While seemingly draconian to most of us, people rarely commit violent crimes because of the knowledge that the government is very serious about punishment.

In this country, it seems that the death penalty is handed out without any consistency. If the penalty for murder one is death for one person while another is 20 years to life, I just don't see how it could work as a very effective deterrent. I'm not necessarily advocating a transition to the Singapore laws, but there's no doubt it works there. Some sort of consistency has to be in place.

So in essence, I am for it sometimes and against it other times, both for reasons Pam has stated and for reasons Wendy, et al have mentioned.

Oh dear. I never know quite where I fall. Well, in *theory*, I could never truly justify taking someone's life away. Giving ourselves and our states or countries the power to decide whether or not someone gets to live makes me really uneasy. And I realize that's also exactly what killers do. They decide that someone else doesn't get to live anymore.

However...

This isn't theory. This is the real world. Don't some of us feel a little safer when a dangerous person will never have even a thread of a chance of walking the streets again? I'm afraid I do. It's easy to let emotions throw our decisions around. And yeah, throwing someone in prison for the rest of their lives would accomplish the same thing, but there's always a chance that they can appeal their way out on a technicality. Of oourse, there's always a chance we could execute an innocent person.

I just wish our justice system was better. Wishful thinking, eh? I wish there were better alternatives so we didn't have to sit around handing out death sentences whenever we sit it fit.

Is the death penalty ever really a deterrent? Obviously to the particular killer it is. My case studies from ethics last year tell me the death penalty is not the most effective tool for the rest of society. Obviously, everyone didn't wake up today and say, "Hey! I think I'll reform myself!"

So these are just a jumble of my thoughts on the death penalty. Ultimately, I don't think the death penalty is the best idea, but what are the alternatives? Do people learn anything from rotting around in jail for the rest of their lives? Do we learn anything by executing them?

I don't know.
Good discussion, everyone,
JD

I'm for the death penalty, but I'm a bit muddled as to when it should be imposed. After all, as pointed out, the justice system is not perfect.

Sure, people can be found innocent later. So institute a waiting time before the penalty is imposed. (Already in place)

But when should someone be given the death penalty? Well, you never know if someone can be rehabilitated. Maybe the person is just mentally unstable.

Then again, there are some people who do crimes so heinous or so numerous, that their sentences are already "lifetime with no chance of parole" or "5 consecutive life sentences". This is probably where I think the death penalty should come into play. Do we really need people going into jail at 25, and living until 95, living in the court system without hope of getting out? At this point, it's a drain on taxpayer dollars, since they just sit there getting fed, have a warm place to sleep.. and have to deal with the politics of inmate life (watched a bit too much Oz). Sometimes it's just cheaper to exact the death penalty in those instances.

It's really hard to draw the line on if and when it should be imposed, in my lil head.

I picked undecided, but not because I believe the death penalty is wrong. There are some people in this world who, without a doubt, would make the Earth a better place without them in it.

However, I honestly think that death is an easier way out. Let them live in a cage for eternity -- the idea is to punish, right? Any purported judgement in the hereafter will keep, and empirically speaking, the only punishment we can garuntee is the punishment we can see and measure.

Also, you can always revoke life-imprisonment if for some reason a mistake was made, whereas you can never undo a death. In any system where human error is involved, I'm extremely reluctant to employ such a drastic, irrevocable action. This is especially the case now that I've begun to grow familiar with the US justice system as a result of my work in forensics.

Until you have a family member murdered you cannot understand the relief and closure that their murder getting the death penality can give. I had an uncle murdered in a robbery who left behind a wife and 5 children ranging from teenagers to very young. His daughters were unable to be walked down the aisle when they were married, his only son who was the youngest didn't have a man to guide him into manhood, his wife didn't have her husband to grow old with.

The anger and sadness will never leave my uncles family. If his muderer had gotten a live sentence they would have felt they got justice, instead he got a life sentence. He went on living having family visits, conjugal visits with his wife, I believe fathering another child. Pictures of his families living, and letters. Their husband and father had none of these. For them this was not justice.

So do I believe in the death penalty, YES. In most states if not all having the death penalty appeals are automatic. Also the prisoners go on to live 15-20 years or more. That is the average of the appeals process.

It cost us billons of dollars a year to keep all the life sentence murders in jail. We have terrible over crowding in most states. You also have him continuing his criminal activities in jail - murdering other prisoners who may have not been violent criminals, raping other prisoners, selling drugs etc.

In my opinion these billions could be put to better uses, education of our children, child protection so we maybe have less criminals, law enforcement, and medical research.


Yes, this is a very hot topic for all of us for different reasons, even among family members. Because it is a matter fueled by emotions it will never be solved to everyones satisfaction.

Wow, I had to read that 3 times just to understand. As you can probably already tell, writing (and maybe reading ) is definately not one of my strong points. I'll have to agree to disagree on that one because I personally don't think there is a difference. I feel if someone decides to take a life then it's a decision to give their own away (in States where there is the death penalty). I won't go into it too much. I am very stubborn and have a hard time expressing myself through writing (at least in English).

Jackie

I don't think that death is the answer to our system's problem here in the US. I do feel that our criminals have too many rights and it's because of lawyers finding an out for them. I think that when some one does something heinous, ie., child molestation, they should be taken to prison and it should be publically announced to the other prisioners what they did and let them suffer the consequences. But nooo...HIPPA laws in prison...go figure. There should be no cable, air conditioning or organ transplants or emergency bypass surgery or dialysis. No free medical care or free college degrees. And for God's sake, people who are child molesters, serial killers, etc. cannot be rehabilitated! So stop wasting my tax money!

A simple solution to our crime problem here in the US is to allow people to just beat the s**t out of criminals when they are caught, do not allow them a trial and stop making jail like the Waldorf Astoria!

My brother who lioves in Freeport, Bahamas says that they have such little crime because they will beat the crap out of people there and there is no trial or greedy defense lawyers. The constable down there doesn't even carry a gun. Try that in the US!

Wow. Quite a discussion.

I guess my thinking is this: people who were convicted of murder twenty or thirty years ago are now being cleared based on the advancement of DNA evidence. What scientific advancements are going to come in twenty or thirty years that will clear people who are convicted today? And if we kill someone today who we find out is innocent tomorrow... what does that do to our moral justification for using the death penalty?

Canada had the death penalty until the 1960s. Since it was abolished, the capital crime rate in Canada has actually fallen (on a per capita basis). (Just a little fact that I found interesting)

As always, I don't have the answers. I just have a lot of questions.

ML

Oh, just one more thing. I'm probably one of those 'greedy defense lawyers' you're talking about. But let me ask you this: how many people get the crap beaten out of them who didn't do anything? And would you still feel the same way about this system if your brother were one of the people who was lying bloody and bruised in a hospital, fighting for his life, because someone decided he was guilty of something. Trials might not be perfect. But they're better, in my opinion, than the alternatives.

ML

I'm with MLT! For me this issue is just fraught with uncertainty. Speaking about the US only for a moment...

On the one hand, it disturbs me to think of a state in charge of executions. The bureacracy of this country is a muddled mess. I wouldn't trust some departments to properly prosecute or defend themselves out of a basket.

On the other, I know people who work in prisons, and some of them are shockingly nice. Cable television? Great food? Martha Stewart certainly wasn't suffering.

Then again, not all prisons are nice. Sometimes people in for minor crimes end up getting into worse crime thanks to the company.

However, there is the fact that we're paying for the whole process, and while I am not mercenary, part of me wants to take that money and use it to help starving children so they never end up in prison in the first place.

The argument about dying not being a really great punishment b/c it's over too quickly also appeals to me. I say forced labour in a coal mine would be a more fitting punishment for many crimes...

I guess part of it boils down to whether I believe prison really rehabilitates anyone. I have to say (and statistics back me up on this) that it's not an encouraging picture at the moment.

Then there's the fact that sexual predators are being let out every day due to lack of space and committing the crime all over again. What are we supposed to do?

So, someone should do something, but it obviously won't be me since I can't for the life of me come up with a solution, other than wiping us all off the face of the earth and starting again...

And I give props to defense attorneys. I was suspicious of them until I got to know one personally, and she's one of the most intelligent and honestly good people I have ever known. She gets a bad rap.

Crazy_babe, just to let you know that I am from Singapore (though not in Singapore right now), so I am aware of the details of the case that has got Australians talking about the death penalty recently.

It probably comes as no surprise to you that I support the stance that my government has taken regarding this case. :p I see no problems with the death penalty for heinous crimes like murder and drug trafficking. That is on the assumption that the person in question is guilty of those crimes. And as for the issue of clemency, courts can allow for clemency, but that should not mean that all appeals should be entertained. That’s why it’s an “appeal”.

But it’s a little difficult to discuss about the merits and demerits of the death penalty like this. If you believe the death penalty is morally wrong under all circumstances, there’s nothing to talk about. You are not likely to convince people who think that the death penalty is an acceptable sentence, and vice versa.

FoLCs who are interested in knowing a little more about the Australian that Singapore hanged last week for drug trafficking please read this .

I have many questions here, but I’m assuming you are not fundamentally opposed to the death penalty if you are commenting specifically on any of the questions I do have. If you are opposed to the death penalty, my questions are irrelevant. :p

If the person’s guilt is not in question (the person was caught with almost 400g of heroin and he confessed to smuggling all these narcotics knowingly) and according to the laws of my country, mere possession of more than 15 g of heroin is deemed as prima facie evidence of trafficking and carries a mandatory death penalty, is there still grounds for an appeal?

Another question that may be a little harder to answer: is the sentence too harsh? How much drugs a person can possess for that amount to be considered to be for personal consumption and not drug trafficking is arbitrary. In Singapore, the amounts are very very low. Possesion of 15g of heroin, 30 g for morphine or 500g (about 1 pound) of marijuana guarantees the possessor the death penalty. How low is too low? Where do you draw the line between personal consumption and trafficking?

What crimes are serious enough to warrant the death penalty? Murder and drug trafficking are obvious ones. What about kidnapping? Use of fire-arms in a robbery in a country where guns are banned, even when no shots are fired? Perjury resulting in the execution of an innocent person? These are all capital offences in Singapore, though the death penalty may not be mandatory.

I'm interested to hear what you all think.


metwin1

I'll say first off that I'm not a fan of the death penalty. There are so many ways that the system can go wrong, and so many moral difficulties involved, that I can't justify it. I would rather a guilty man live than an innocent man die by mistake. And I'm not convinced that the state has the right to decide to end someone's life, regardless of what they've done. I'm all for life without parole, and I think the current trend of life in prison really meaning XX years with good behavior is ridiculous. Murderers, child abusers, etc, should not be back on the streets. Ever. But I can't justify killing them.

This is an argument that comes up a lot. "Our tax dollars are paying to keep these people alive; the death penalty means we aren't spending money to feed/clothe/house/etc. criminals." Although that makes sense, there are a lot of statistics that claim that executing a prisoner costs significantly more than the cost of imprisoning him (or her) for the rest of his life. Those facts are in dispute, depending who you ask, but I'm inclined to discount the financial argument since it isn't clear-cut.

Maybe I'm just overly sensitive, but this seems a little... condescending to me. I don't mean to diminish your loss, by any means, and maybe I can't imagine what his family went through. But people lose loved ones for lots of reasons, and rarely do they get "closure" of any kind.

If your uncle had been killed by a teenage driver, would killing the teenager give the family closure? The loss of a husband and father would be just as sudden, as unexpected, as painful. But I don't think very many people would advocate putting the teenager to death.

I realize that the difference there is the intent of the killer, and I guess that's the heart of the issue. We imprison murderers so they will not kill again, while the teenage driver would get a lesser sentence because he's unlikely to kill again. He would still go on to get married, father children, etc. Where is the closure in that?

And the court system isn't perfect. If the wrong man were executed, would that give the family closure? Not only would the real killer be free, but their need for retribution would have killed an innocent man. All in all, I don't know that the family's need for closure is a valid argument.

Yes, if my loved one were murdered, I would vengeance. If there had been someone I could have blamed when my mother died (of leukemia), I might very well have lost my head and gone after them. But as a state we have to keep a level head. Vengeance isn't a good enough motivation, imho, to methodically and coolly kill another person.

I take the view of distinction between individual and state authority. The State has the moral imperative to enforce the laws and consequences to the laws -- the latter and some of the former are prohibited to individuals; those who do so anyway we term "vigilante" and that's the basis of Mayson's gripe with Superman, no? But even within comics we see gradiations -- Superman works in strong cooperation with law enforcement; Batman has a loose association, but usually enforces laws while leaving consequences to the justice system; the Punisher enforces both laws (his own) and consequences (his own) and is an outlaw because of it.

The State, in order to fulfill its role, also holds the right to carry out punishments that individuals may not do. The judge has the authority to make life-and-death decisions, but only in his or her role as a judge. When speaking as part of the judicial system, that authority exists. When speaking as an individual, it does not. Likewise the actions of the executioner -- Mr. Bobby Jones does not have the right to take life; it is the office he holds which has that right and duty under certain circumstances.

Now, whether that should be one of the consequences the State may set and impose? I say a tentative yes. People are being cleared who were previously convicted, now that we have more advanced technology. But by the same token, doesn't that mean we may be more sure of the validity of recent convictions?

There are crimes which can warrant death. Whether a particular criminal warrants it is a case-by-case decision, but I feel that it should be an option which the judge and jury may choose from among others.

I think a basic cause of the philosophical disagreement re: capital punishment is caused by one's perception of what the result of a crime should be.

As a society, are we looking to rehabilitate or punish the criminal? Obviously, if it is rehabilitation, then capital punishment doesn't work. As punishment, however.... Well, it's pretty definitive.

Here in Canada, from a political standpoint, the society seeks to rehabilitate the criminal which is an admirable goal. I don't know the recidivism rate here but I'd guess that the majority of criminals do backslide upon release from jail. So it is a flawed system.

I also feel, though, that capital punishment is flawed. There is always the chance that an innocent person could be executed and there are always cases that provoke debate on both sides of the fence - Tookie Williams, for example.

Everything I've read about Tookie Williams states that he turned his life around in prison. He preached about the dangers of gang life to young people and tried to make his life positive - or as positive as possible in jail. Yet he was still executed. Obviously the desire for punishment outweighed a desire for criminal rehabilitation in that case. Not a positive outcome in my opinion.

On the other hand, people like Bundy, Gacy or Bernardo (one of Canada's own serial killers) who are sociopaths who have no desire to stop torturing and killing victims, it's hard to imagine any possibility for rehabilitation in their cases. And in Bundy's case, he managed to escape from custody to continue his crimes.

In a society dedicated to punishment, those who have redeemed themselves, like Tookie Williams, will be executed anyway. But in a society dedicated to rehabilitation, those who continually condemn themselves like Ted Bundy may end up with far more chances than they deserve, and may also end up doing far more harm in the long run.

It's an interesting quandary.

You'll notice that I've not said whether I'm in favour of capital punishment or not. That's because I really don't know. My head says 'no, absolutely not' but in my heart, when I hear of someone like Bundy or Gacy being executed, I can't bring myself to feel sorry about it.

Irene

I get so extremely angry, frustrated and sad every time I try to discuss this topic with anyone that I never really feel like I’m able to express how much I’m against the death penalty.


I remember seeing this TV program, they were visiting a prison in Texas I believe. They were showing how it looked inside the prison where those who were sentenced to death were sitting, and then they showed the room where they execute people. (It was not the first time I saw something like this on TV)
All this was done with the sheriff as sort of a tour guide. They were explaining how they executed the prisoners, and how everything worked. As I was watching I just remember feeling all shaky and cold. Then the sheriff stood there with this extremely smug look on his face telling how right it was to do this, and I just had to run to the bathroom, afraid I was going to throw up.

I won’t go into a discussion on what’s right and wrong, because I know I’ll just be sitting here tearing my hair out, getting all emotional.

I live in Tuscany; one of our points of pride is that the Granducato di Toscana suppressed death penalty for the first time in the world in 1786, 30 November (this date is today our Festa della Toscana)

I'm totally against the death penalty; I think it's morally wrong and, when applied, it's open to too many mistakes of judgement( speaking about USA, in 2001 Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noting that 90 death row inmates have been exonerated by new evidence since 1973,in a speech she said that "the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed."). Probably this is one of the most important issue which divides US and Europe. And in other contries the situation on this problem is worse than this

simona

I have to reply about the reason I get so upset with defense attorneys and the system here in the US. This week at my hospital that I work we did rape kits on 2 children that came back positive; an 11 year old and a 3 year old. A 'friend of the family' raped the 3 year old but was caught before he could finish by mother's brother and he beat the crap out of the rapist. Well the rapist and the 3 year old came in as surgical traumas at the same time. While I'm pinning a rapist's arm a 3 year old is having a rape kit done. After surgery the story comes out and the whole medical team is just pissed. The uncle gets arrested for beating the crap out of a child molester but the rapist had a lawyer that allegedly told him that since there was no DNA because he used a condom and it was the uncle's word against his the case would probably be dismissed.

FYI the 3 year old is not doing well. She will probably not survive.

The eleven year old was said to have already been sexually active and was willing and the guy who is a previous sex offender is said will probably get a charge of violating his probation by being around kids.

Next time it could be my relative that is victimized!

Oh, and a previous local celebrity here went to her boyfriend's new girlfriend's house, armed, got into an argument with the boyfriend and shot him. She said she went there with a gun because he was dangerous and abusive. So why was she following him around? Anyway he died days later and in her trial the defense attorney said that my hospital killed him on the operating table. Duh...had she not shot him he would not have been on our table in the first place. The prosecution went for 2nd degree murder but because 'the hospital killed him.' She was aquitted because the court found her guilty of a lesser charge...manslaughter...but couldn't charge her with that because she was found not guilty of the initial charge. She therefore literally got away with murder!

If you are wrongfully accused, sure get the best attorney you can find but to plea bargain for a lesser sentence or give up information and be let back on the streets or to just have an attorney who is smart enough to get you out of trouble, I have trouble with.

On the same token, I doon't believe in the death penalty because it too could be my family member and I don't think it solves anything.

I believe a person who kills a child should automatic be put to death. Why should anyone who kills set in prison on death row while we pay for them to be there.If the USA would put more people to death like they do in foreign counties maybe people would think twice before they killed.

checking in late, i didn't vote...

wow. one of the reasons this batman outcast is on this board is evident in the discussion above. the death penaly is an extremely devisive issue, as many have stated, just as hot as abortion, the war, etc. People like kmar and sheila are talking about *personal* experiences. And no one's been banned, no one's exploded (exploded pointed at someone, anyway), no one's degenerated into name calling, and everyone is posting well-thought-out arguments. there isn't a gremlin that sums up what I think about this, so I'll have to use words. this board has brains, this board has maturity, and i salute you (and all of that other mushy stuff that only works when it's very, very sincere).

I don't believe in the death penalty, for several reasons. The first reason is that to me, life is really an incredible miracle. I am not a religious person, and because of that, I don't consider life preordained or inevitable in any way. Being a space buff, I am extremely aware of all those lifeless other planets and moons in our own solar system, and all those extra-solar planets which have been discovered and which are certainly sterile because of the "deadly" shape of the orbits they follow around their suns. I firmly believe that planets bearing higher life forms like ourselves are unusual in the universe. Life, therefore, is something I consider rare, precious, miraculous and extremely fragile. The special miracle of life is that I think of every sentient being as the creator and carrier of his or her own personal inner universe. I would go so far as to say that the real universe gets slightly bigger, richer and more fantastic because each and every one of us creates an image of the world in our minds.

Not only that: because I am not a religious person, I don't believe in life after death. I don't believe we continue to exist in another dimension when our bodies die on Earth. Therefore, I don't believe we get a second chance to find happiness or justice to make up for the bad things that happened to us on the Earth. I believe that the life we live here and now is what we get. This means that the magnitude of deliberately taking another person's life is staggering. To me, it literally means that you kill a part of the universe. You extinguish a consciousness, an "I" which is a unique part of the cosmos and which can never be explained or recreated.

Naturally, some of those unique consciousnesses are malevolent individuals who are bent on destroying others. I don't doubt for a minute that the overwhelming majority of humanity would be better off if these really bad individuals were eliminated. Killed. Executed. Whatever.

But, people. Are we capable of judging which individuals deserve to be killed? Do we know a bad egg when we see one? Do we have the wisdom to know when to snuff out the life and self and being from a person and snuff out an absolutely unique perspective of the cosmos from the universe?

Four years ago, the wife of a young, charismatic Pentecostalist pastor was found dead in the family bath-tub here in Sweden. A cursory post-mortem found that she had very high levels of pain killers and tranquillizers in her body, and the police concluded that this young mother of three small children had, for unknown reasons, killed herself. Naturally she had killed herself. The alternative, that she had been killed by her incredibly respectable and popular husband, was of course unthinkable. The police therefore did not consider her home a crime scene, and they did nothing to look for evidence that she might have been killed. The pastor remarried within a month of his first wife's death.

Two years later, the pastor's second wife was shot to death by the young nanny that he had hired for his children after their mother's death, and whom he had kept even after he remarried. Now the police was forced to seriously look into the pastor's business, and guess what they found? The pastor was carrying on a love affair with the nanny. He was carrying on an even more serious love affair with his second wife's sister-in-law! In fact, he wanted to get rid of his second wife so that he could marry the sister-in-law, but he didn't want to cause a scandal by getting a divorce. Instead he had for many months been "brainwashing" the young nanny, convincing her that God wanted her to kill the pastor's second wife! At first she refused, but after months of persuasion, she attacked the pastor's wife with a hammer. The wife survived, and the police knew nothing about the hammer attack because the congregation kept absolutely quiet about it. The pastor could go on brainwashing the nanny, and eventually she got herself a gun and shot the pastor's wife.

The point I want to make is this. The police did not suspect the pastor of murdering his first wife, because he was so respectable. They did nothing whatsoever to find out what had actually caused the first wife's death. The pastor's congregation knew about the hammer attack on the second wife, but they kept absolutely quiet it, because they totally believed in their pastor and didn't want to cause any problems for him. Because the police did nothing, because his congregation implicitly trusted him, and because everyone who had anything to do with him regarded him as a paragon of respectability, no one lifted a finger to protect his second wife. And the outcome was two dead young women, three small motherless children and a young nanny who became a killer for her love of a pastor and her belief in God.

My point is this. I don't think we are very good at judging other people. We are not good at being fair. We rush to conclusions. Who are we to give ourselves the right to sentence other people to death?

There is one more thing. In a democracy, we ought to feel a personal responsibility for the society of which we are citizens. To me, this means that if I believe that the courts of my country should be allowed to sentence a person to death, then I should be willing to be a part of a jury that sentences someone to death. But there is more than that. When a person has been sentenced to death, somebody must carry out the actual execution. If I support the death penalty, I must also support the actual, physical killing of people. I must support the pushing of a button which sends lethal current into a person's body. I must support the actual injecting of poison into his or her body. If I support the death penalty, then I should be willing to do the actual, manual killing of that person. Would I be willing to do that? And what would it do to me as a person if I willingly, deliberately killed another person, a helpless person who could not defend himself or herself?

I must say that I'm not willing to actually kill another person, certainly not a restrained, helpless person who is not an immediate threat to anybody. I don't want to know what it would do to me if I actually, deliberately did kill a helpless person. Therefore, I know I must say no to the death penalty.

Ann