Ok, why should *this* guy live?

[GreNME]

In both cases, you can't undo the punishment.

Strawman. Could you please answer the question now?

 

[CatInTheBag]

No. Leave off your faux outrage that I'm not bowing to the wisdom of your points quickly enough.

Your inference confuses me.

That's true. And the heirs of the wrongfully executed can be compensated as well.

And the executee? How shall they be compensated. Or does the fact that being dead, therefore not being in a position to care either way, negate the need for compensation to the wronged party?

But in neither case can the punishment be undone.

Yes. That was agreed already.

I don't know about you, but I can't actually think of an amount of money that would be worth losing the first ten years of a daughter's childhood, or five years with my wife. I might be able to come up with a sum that would be worth the loss of friends, community, the trust and respect built up with people, etc. -- but it would almost certainly be more money than they'd give me.

At the very least it's negotiable or on a continuum. Death, for the most part, is fairly final.

 

[AvalonXQ]

At the very least it's negotiable or on a continuum. Death, for the most part, is fairly final.

I don't agree that twenty years in prison is negotiable, especially for people with established lives.
I, for one, cannot think of an amount of money that I would take in exchange for twenty years in prison. Can you?

 

[CatInTheBag]

I don't agree that compensation for twenty years in prison is negotiable, especially for people with established lives.

Is this what you meant to state?

I, for one, cannot think of an amount of money that I would take in exchange for twenty years in prison. Can you?

In that money is component of being compensated. Yes. It would be a lot.

Although it's not an exchange. An exchange implies that I have the choice at the beginning. I would, naturally, prefer neither state, were I to have had the choice initially.

Nonetheless, the amount is still both infinitely more, and infinitely less at the same time, as the amount that would adequately compensate me for being dead for 20 years. Or 10 years. Or 10 minutes.

 

[GreNME]

I don't agree that twenty years in prison is negotiable, especially for people with established lives.
I, for one, cannot think of an amount of money that I would take in exchange for twenty years in prison. Can you?

Still stuck on a strawman. Could you please answer my question?

 

[HansMustermann]

I don't agree that twenty years in prison is negotiable, especially for people with established lives.
I, for one, cannot think of an amount of money that I would take in exchange for twenty years in prison. Can you?

Nevertheless, if I had a choice between (A) 20 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit, and, say, (B) 15 years on the death row and 5 dead, I don't think I'm the only one who'd prefer the former. Even the prospect of in one case counting the days to freedom and in the other one counting the days to death, seems rather inequal.

So taking into account that _some_ people will always be convicted for a crime they did not commit, I think I'd be more comfortable with putting them through the former than the latter.

Mind you, in an ideal world we wouldn't convict an innocent in the first place. But our world isn't anywhere near that ideal. Innocents being convicted is at this point not even just a possibility, but a certainty. The only question remains how much harm are we prepared to inflict to those unfortunate enough to end up in that situation.

 

[Almo]

And what exactly is wrong with revenge?

It's ultimately useless. Manhunt (a PS2 game) illustrated that very well. It sets up a horrible bad guy that really makes you want revenge. When you get it, it just leaves you feeling empty. Very well done game illustrating a very good point.

 

[River]

Plus, killing him will deprive him of all those years being raped in the shower.

I personally dont want to support his ass in jail that long. Dispose of him in a similar way he chose to dispose of his victim. Cheap, and effective.

 

[GreNME]

I personally dont want to support his ass in jail that long. Dispose of him in a similar way he chose to dispose of his victim. Cheap, and effective.

Do you support taking a thief's hands for stealing as well?

 

[rwguinn]

Lets see some folk don't trust their government to provide health care for all but they do trust them to decide who should live and die... always strikes me as rather a strange position to hold.

Except it is the people themselves who make the decision.
We have a thing called "Trial by Jury" over here. You guys should try it.

 

[Almo]

I personally dont want to support his ass in jail that long. Dispose of him in a similar way he chose to dispose of his victim. Cheap, and effective.

Death Penalty including all the appeals and stuff is more expensive than life in prison. Unless you make it less rigorous, then you kill more innocent people.

Personally, I think if the system kills one innocent person, that's too many. It's just like all this fuss about the Terrorists.

It's the terrorists and the murderers who kill people. Not the security system for letting them slip through. I don't advocate NO security. But overdoing it doesn't help since they'll find a way to slip through. When one does slip through, it's not the security system (unless it's proven there's serious negligence) that killed the people. It's still the terrorists who did it.

Life in prison without parole prevents recidivism AND allows you to let them go later should you find out you have the wrong person. And it's cheaper. It's nothing but win all around for use of life in prison instead of the death penalty.

 

[Delscottio]

Except it is the people themselves who make the decision.
We have a thing called "Trial by Jury" over here. You guys should try it.

Juries decide guilt, I always thought it was the Governement who passed relevent legislation on punishments?

 

[Ambrosia]

The state has an obligation to protect society from external as well as internal threats by punishing aggressors and offenders who have shown themselves to be hostile to society.

This is very true.

The punishment should fit the crime and the only punishment that fit this crime is death.

This isn't. "The punishment should fit the crime" is a glib soundbite that reduces down to "an eye for an eye"

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

There are a number of punishments I can think of that would be appropriate for this guy, and none of them involve killing him.

And what exactly is wrong with revenge?

Quite a lot as it happens.

Try asking people from Northern Ireland for example. For over a decade now there has been peace in Northern Ireland. If everyone there was entitled to enact revenge people would still be getting blown up and shot on a regular basis.

I object to capital punishment for three reasons. i) Killing people is wrong, no matter who does it. ii) The risk of executing innocents is too great, and death cannot be undone iii) it costs too much money.

 

[GreNME]

Except it is the people themselves who make the decision.
We have a thing called "Trial by Jury" over here. You guys should try it.

So, is it okay if a jury decides that someone is guilty of theft and will face having their hands amputated? Same principle, and yet it's generally considered unreasonable. Could you explain why?

 

[rwguinn]

Juries decide guilt, I always thought it was the Governement who passed relevent legislation on punishments?

a Government "Of the PEOPLE, by THE PEOPLE, and for THE PEOPLE"
True, the District Attorney determines if the death penalty applies, and whether he/she will go for the death penalty, but Juries generally decide if the Death Penalty should be applied.

 

[GreNME]

a Government "Of the PEOPLE, by THE PEOPLE, and for THE PEOPLE"
True, the District Attorney determines if the death penalty applies, and whether he/she will go for the death penalty, but Juries generally decide if the Death Penalty should be applied.

Would it be okay if a jury were deciding that a thief should lose his hands?

 

[HarryHenderson]

Once again, you've already been linked to cases where people were on death row, or even executed when there was compelling evidence that exonerated them from their crime.

Just for the record, my post was mostly about THIS particular 'dirtball' and THIS particular OP, not as much the death penalty in general. Anyway, I have not nor would I ever propose that 'innocent' people be imprisoned/executed. But I also understand our human existence just isn't ever going to be 'perfect', and the best we can do is 'the best we can do' - however 'cosmically imperfect' that may end up being. With me personally the problems inevitably arise when we don't do 'the best we can do'.

Once again, the argument is started with the premise that judges and juries are run by omnibenevolent and omniscient citizens who can perfectly convict people and perfectly judge the severity of the crime without the least possibility of error.

Whoa Nellie, I didn't start with that premise. But as a citizen of a civilized society I do have to put X amount of faith and trust in the system in general that it can and will do the best it can. And even if I (and a thousand more of me) disagreed with each and every single ruling entity, law, action, board, judgement, traffic signal and import tariff I STILL couldn't genuinely 'affect' the inherent 'imperfection' we all exist in.

Honestly, I'm just trying to understand how you can claim to have read this thread and not even have anything to say about the possibility of erroneous conviction.

Because I'm dollars to donuts SURE that, in the end, one being morally against the 'death penalty' has very little to do with 'erroneous conviction'. And if I'm wrong then surely this 'dirtball' guy is the poster child for a 'non-erroneous conviction', and thus COSMICALLY eligible for the death penalty?

Simple question #1: is the US justice system perfect? Simple question #2: If it is not, is it easier to let the innocent free, or bring the dead back to life?

#1) The US Justice system is not perfect, nor do I believe anyone with even just a modicum of intelligence thinks it is. But don't be fooled, the US Justice system specifically is as 'fair' (if not more so) as any justice system anywhere. #2) Ease of administration and/or expediency really isn't the high priority in death penalty situations that it can be in lesser crimes. And for the proper reasons even.

Horrible cases make bad case law.

The problem is that laws made for dirtballs like this one, also end up applied to people who aren't nearly as big dirtballs, or when we aren't even sure if they're the right dirtball.

And the crux of the problem is exactly that certainty you seem to have that you somehow _know_ he did all that, and can base an "X => Y" on that proposition X. The fact of the matter is that we've been wrong too often before.

Again, speaking about this specific case, debating the 'usual suspect' pro-con arguments of the death penalty in general isn't so applicable in this case as not only was he originally convicted by a jury based on duly presented evidence and such, but he ALSO confessed after-the-fact of his own free will and in his own words. Is there any evidence I'm UNAWARE of that he may still be 'innocent'? I'm willing to accept that in this case he's NOT 'innocent' and such a designation is, for all intents and purposes, the 'cosmically correct' one.

Similar self-righteous fist-shaking could have been done about Cameron Todd Willingham, really. I mean, would you allow a dirtball who burned his 3 children alive to live? Too bad it turned out that he _didn't_. But only after he had already been executed.

Would you allow a dirtball like Robert Hubert to live after he set a major city on fire? Good think they hanged the scumbag, eh? Too bad he wasn't even in the city when that happened.

Would you allow a dirtball like the murderer of Elizabeth Ann Short live? I mean, she had her breasts cut off, the initials of her nickname carved into her leg, her face slashed from the edges of the mouth to the ears, was cut in half, and dumped by the roadside. The stuff of horrors. Surely the murderer should swing from the gallows, right? Well, which of them are you going to hang? There are some 50 people who confessed the murder.

And again, the death penalty debate in general is not what I was querying near as much as this specific, if not worthless ********** (ad hominen attack) 'dirtball'. In simple terms I'm like you, I absolutely oppose executing innocent people - or even people who have simply the 'air of innocence' - either accidentally or on purpose. I just happen to also agree that there are 'bad people' and things such as 'evil' out there, and that regardless of the intrinsic imperfections within any process we might indulge, we are (morally) allowed to rid the universe of such when it's clear, obvious and righteous.

It's ultimately useless. Manhunt (a PS2 game) illustrated that very well. It sets up a horrible bad guy that really makes you want revenge. When you get it, it just leaves you feeling empty. Very well done game illustrating a very good point.

I'm not exactly sure when/where 'revenge' became the leading contender for why we should put people to death, but that's not where I'm coming from in my opinion at all.

Again, I'm not attempting to argue near as much as discuss - and I want to be as clear as I can, my general question and curiosity applies mostly to the people who say the 'death penalty' is BAD in ALL cases period. To me this is a perfect 'grey area' case in that he's such a scumbag, he's so guilty and if anyone has ever needed to be taken 'out of circulation' so as to never harm anyone again, it's this guy. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, just trying to find out exactly what's in their mind.

 

[Ambrosia]

my general question and curiosity applies mostly to the people who say the 'death penalty' is BAD in ALL cases period. To me this is a perfect 'grey area' case in that he's such a scumbag, he's so guilty and if anyone has ever needed to be taken 'out of circulation' so as to never harm anyone again, it's this guy.

I agree completely.

Why is the best course of action to kill him? Lock him up and throw away the key, keep him in solitary confinement and give him a good long time to reflect on what he's done and how much he has lost because of what he's done.

The justice system is supposed to punish, to act as a deterrent to would be criminals and try to help criminals who can be reformed to moderate their behaviour in the future.

I don't think the death penalty does any of those 3 things very well.

 

[River]

Do you support taking a thief's hands for stealing as well?

To be short, no.

Death Penalty including all the appeals and stuff is more expensive than life in prison. Unless you make it less rigorous, then you kill more innocent people.

Personally, I think if the system kills one innocent person, that's too many. It's just like all this fuss about the Terrorists.

It's the terrorists and the murderers who kill people. Not the security system for letting them slip through. I don't advocate NO security. But overdoing it doesn't help since they'll find a way to slip through. When one does slip through, it's not the security system (unless it's proven there's serious negligence) that killed the people. It's still the terrorists who did it.

Life in prison without parole prevents recidivism AND allows you to let them go later should you find out you have the wrong person. And it's cheaper. It's nothing but win all around for use of life in prison instead of the death penalty.

In certain cases where there is an overwhelming amount of evidence, or confession with corroborating evidence of such heinous acts including murder along with child rape are well deserving of capital punishment. I am not suggesting cutting back on any of the rights of the defendant, but mearly enforcing it on a more permanent basis. Exactly how much is another childs life worth?

Who says a criminal that commits such a heinous acts (with circumstances such as this case, not applying to all cases involving murder, or rape, but in certain cases) deserves any more of a proper death than they gave? I say why spend a lot of extra cash to house this guy after we already pay for the trial (whether they are innocent or guilty, they are going to be tried, and then if incarcerated reviewed later time and time again if not put to death)

Why not put them to death in a very simple, cheap, yet effective way? (after due process and having the right to appeal) I personally dont care how humane or not it may be considering the circumstances. I personally do not see any good of keeping someone like this around on the planet. What good comes from it?

 

[Ambrosia]

Why not put them to death in a very simple, cheap, yet effective way? (after due process and having the right to appeal)

thats the expensive bit.