Death Penalty: Pt XXIV

Minoosh said:
At any rate a lot, without a really clear idea of how these releases were adjudicated. It's hard (for me anyway) to determine if justice was served.
Click to expand...

It's not the purpose of POW camps to dispense justice.

There's a whole other debate to be had about gitmo, but it's not really relevant to this thread. We can discuss crime and punishment just fine without opening that can of worms.
 
There is nothing wrong with the death penalty in principle. The problems start with:


  • the logistics of it
  • the quality of the justice system (for example, the rich will pay their way out of it)
  • and the biggest problem of all: the State as executioner.

In the USA, a convict given the death penalty spends literally years on Death Row, whilst the automatic appeal process kicks in. This is inhumane immediately. A person handed a death sentence should have the act carried out ASAP, not twenty years down the line.

In China, people are executed for minor crimes such as tax evasion, so in effect, it is State as thug.

Both the USA and China have the worst record in human rights when it comes to the death penalty.

The US alternative to the death penalty is Life Without Parole. This is inhumane as well. If a prisoner is given a term of imprisonment, then it is quite possible he or she will reform at some point and come to genuinely regret their crime, feel remorse and grow into a better person. Humans need hope. LWP takes that away, and is akin to torture.
 
Last edited:
Vixen said:
The US alternative to the death penalty is Life Without Parole. This is inhumane as well. If a prisoner is given a term of imprisonment, then it is quite possible he or she will reform at some point and come to genuinely regret their crime, feel remorse and grow into a better person. Humans need hope. LWP takes that away, and is akin to torture.
Click to expand...

This implies that a convicted criminal should be able to avoid any punishment at all, if they are able to produce a suitably sincere-sounding expression of remorse in court.
 
Vixen said:
There is nothing wrong with the death penalty in principle.
[...]
The US alternative to the death penalty is Life Without Parole. This is inhumane as well.
Click to expand...
It's hard to keep your story consistent within a single post. :rolleyes:
 
Vixen said:
Both the USA and China have the worst record in human rights when it comes to the death penalty.
Click to expand...
Are you paid by Iran or by Saudi Arabia (or both) to bring this message? Those are just two countries that, off the top of my hat, have an objectively worse record on the death penalty than the USA.
 
Vixen said:
In the USA, a convict given the death penalty spends literally years on Death Row, whilst the automatic appeal process kicks in. This is inhumane immediately. A person handed a death sentence should have the act carried out ASAP, not twenty years down the line.
Click to expand...
There's nothing "automatic" about the appeals process. It's the convicted's own choice to file those appeals, or have them filed by his attorney.

ETA: oh, and the plethora of appeal options as well as the possibility to ask for pardon was built in for humane reasons, so that as few as possible not-guilty would actually be executed. Many a death-convict owes their life to the length of that process and the possibility that gives to find further proof of innocence.
 
Last edited:
Venom said:
I'd say there's about a dozen or so other countries you've missed.
Click to expand...
Pretty much; depends a bit how you count. From Amnesty International on the 2017 figures:
The number of executions (23) and death sentences (41) in the USA slightly increased compared to 2016, but remained within historically low trends of recent years. For the second year in a row, and the second time since 2006, the USA did not feature among the top five global executioners, with its position in the global ranking dropping from 7th to 8th.
Click to expand...
However, if you count per capita, then those 41 sentences are less than even one sentence in either Trinidad & Tobago or in Guyana, the other two American countries that imposed a death sentence, and those 23 executions far less than the 8 executions that were carried out in Singapore (all for drug-related offences).
 
Last edited:
I used to favor the death penalty for certain crimes but having learned about some interesting points over the years, I have changed my position.

If you are poor, you are unlikely to be able to hire a good attorney to defend you in court. Having served as a juror a few times, I can say that I would not want a public defender if I ever needed to go to trial. Also, I recently read about the concept that not being able to post bail (poor folks) also increases your chance of being convicted.

https://www.revealnews.org/blog/cant-post-bail-jail-before-trial-increases-odds-of-conviction/

A new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research, which analyzed over 420,000 cases in Philadelphia and Miami-Dade counties, found that being incarcerated before trial significantly increases the likelihood of being convicted.

The researchers concluded that pretrial detention makes defendants more likely to plead guilty by 27.5 percent and more likely to be found guilty by a jury by 27.3 percent.

Rodney Roberts was one of these detained defendants. Before he agreed to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit, he had already spent several weeks locked-up in the Essex County jail in New Jersey.

Roberts, then a 29-year-old salesman and father from Newark, had been arrested for a parole violation and subsequently charged with aggravated sexual assault. The court had set bail at $50,000, and he was unable to pay.

Roberts had been convicted of a felony in the same court 10 years earlier and knew the odds would be stacked against him if he pushed for a trial. When his public defender told him that pleading guilty to the downgraded charge of kidnapping was the best option for him, Roberts felt trapped by a system and accepted.
Click to expand...

I also feel confident (but have no direct evidence) that some people who can appear perfectly rational during jury selection can be extremely biased and/or racist, making a fair trial a myth.
 
zooterkin said:
You're not making any sense.
Click to expand...

Only for people with a reading difficulty.

zooterkin said:
Either one is against the death penalty, or for it.
Click to expand...

Yet the OP posts a direct quote from this forum that shows exactly what I mean - it that also refutes your position. The quote notes the person is usually against capital punishment, but the seriousness of the ISIS crimes is enough to mean the person would accept execution in that case.

zooterkin said:
Someone who says they're normally against it, but would make exceptions is in fact in favour of the death penalty, albeit for a small number of cases.
Click to expand...

See, you did understand, or you wouldn't have posted that.

I'm trying to find where that line is and why. Is there a number of victims that open execution as punishment? Does the age matter? etc.
 
The Atheist said:
Yet the OP posts a direct quote from this forum that shows exactly what I mean - it that also refutes your position. The quote notes the person is usually against capital punishment, but the seriousness of the ISIS crimes is enough to mean the person would accept execution in that case.
Click to expand...


This is almost in total opposition to my position.

I do not oppose the death penalty simply because I haven't observed a heinous enough crime yet.
 
Last edited:
The Atheist said:
I'm trying to find where that line is and why.
Click to expand...

For anyone for whom such a line exists, that person is by definition in favour of capital punishment. Your entire question is therefore self-contradictory; it seems to be based on the assumption that absolutely everybody supports capital punishment for some crimes, the only differences being in the interpretation of where the threshold for capital punishment applies. This is not in fact the case.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
For anyone for whom such a line exists, that person is by definition in favour of capital punishment. Your entire question is therefore self-contradictory; it seems to be based on the assumption that absolutely everybody supports capital punishment for some crimes, the only differences being in the interpretation of where the threshold for capital punishment applies. This is not in fact the case.
Click to expand...
But he starts off by saying he doesn't want to hear from people who support the death penalty.
 
I'm in favor of the death penalty but only for one kind of crimes: corruption in government office. Because those are betrayals of the entire nation, whereas mere murder only victimizes the murdered. Executing corrupt officials would prevent them from gaining by their crimes, as well as discourage others. And such criminals are less likely to be poor and underprivileged to begin with, so no fears there about inequality. These are people who are already at the top and decide that's not enough, they want more, and will betray the public to get it. Why do they get a slap on the wrist, a short stay in country club prison, then a cushy retirement possibly with more offices granted by political cronies? Corruption is a poison, a cancer on government. The damage it does deserves the ultimate punishment. Root it out, stop the spread, permanently.

Murder can be justified, depending on the circumstances. Betraying the public by abuse of office for gain cannot.
 
The Atheist said:
Yet the OP posts a direct quote from this forum that shows exactly what I mean - it that also refutes your position. The quote notes the person is usually against capital punishment, but the seriousness of the ISIS crimes is enough to mean the person would accept execution in that case.
Click to expand...
It doesn't refute my position. They are in favour of the death penalty in some cases (which applies to anyone who is in favour of the death penalty). If you want to establish where people draw the line, fine, but you're just confusing the issue by miscategorising people, and then asking the very people you want to hear from not to post.

For the record, though it's not answering the question you asked, I'm not in favour of the death penalty. There are some people whose deaths would not cause me to lose sleep, but I would still prefer they were dealt with in some other way.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'm in favor of the death penalty but only for one kind of crimes: corruption in government office. Because those are betrayals of the entire nation, whereas mere murder only victimizes the murdered. Executing corrupt officials would prevent them from gaining by their crimes, as well as discourage others. And such criminals are less likely to be poor and underprivileged to begin with, so no fears there about inequality. These are people who are already at the top and decide that's not enough, they want more, and will betray the public to get it. Why do they get a slap on the wrist, a short stay in country club prison, then a cushy retirement possibly with more offices granted by political cronies? Corruption is a poison, a cancer on government. The damage it does deserves the ultimate punishment. Root it out, stop the spread, permanently.

Murder can be justified, depending on the circumstances. Betraying the public by abuse of office for gain cannot.
Click to expand...
Well, they do that in China, but it's not working as an absolute deterrent, as it keeps happening.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'm in favor of the death penalty but only for one kind of crimes: corruption in government office. Because those are betrayals of the entire nation, whereas mere murder only victimizes the murdered. Executing corrupt officials would prevent them from gaining by their crimes, as well as discourage others. And such criminals are less likely to be poor and underprivileged to begin with, so no fears there about inequality. These are people who are already at the top and decide that's not enough, they want more, and will betray the public to get it. Why do they get a slap on the wrist, a short stay in country club prison, then a cushy retirement possibly with more offices granted by political cronies? Corruption is a poison, a cancer on government. The damage it does deserves the ultimate punishment. Root it out, stop the spread, permanently.

Murder can be justified, depending on the circumstances. Betraying the public by abuse of office for gain cannot.
Click to expand...



I could get right alongside this idea. We can call it 'abuse of the public trust while in office'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom