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

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