Cobb

I have changed my opinion over the years. I used to be in favor of the death penalty, thinking it was a deterrent to violent crime.

I now think that many if not most crimes of violence are committed by people who are incapable of responding to threats of future retaliation (the death penalty). The deterrent just doesn't work.

I am now firmly anti-death penalty. I'd even oppose the death penalty for Osama Bin Laden. Life without the possibility of parole has whatever mild sufficient deterrent effect, and ensures that the perp will hurt no other civilians (he or she may commit more violent crimes while in prison, but at least no more civilians).

I suppose that makes me "soft on crime". Booshwa, I say to that. Accusing someone of being "soft on crime" is just ideological posturing, like the alleged "war on Christmas". I'm for science: what *really* reduces the crime rate, Charlie? Let's do it.

Humans make mistakes. Sometimes prosecutors and policemen hide evidence that goes against conviction. The death penalty cannot be undone. It should not be allowed in this country.

50% of convicts on death row in IL. were found to be innocent of the crime convicted BY STUDENT VOLUNTEERS.

Let's stay in the civilian realm for a while, but I do want to cover more forms of capital punishment. Is there some 'fate worse than death'? If so what is it and are we certain that we remove it from state power.

As a hypothetical. If we eliminated penalties worse than what criminals can think up, is that fair to society? If we were, in a society of 300 million to find some 3000 psychopaths who could and would do to their victims some 'fate worse than death', are we obligated never to do that much to them?

I like the idea of the 'deodand': that which is given up to God. If a machine takes a human life, the machine is destroyed. If a bear mauls a child, the bear is destroyed.

--

If 50% of convicts in Illinois were proven innocent, it only means that the system can be improved. I find the need for perfection in prosecution to be unrealistic - even 90% perfection. I am operating on the principle that a justice *system* is better than mob rule, and that even a flawed system that executes innocents (at a reasonably small rate) is better than mob rule.

Realistically, the US executes relatively few people.

I used to favor the death penalty when it wasn't possible to imprison someone without possibility of parole or early release.

And certain cases, like the one where the little girl was abducted from her bedroom and buried alive, could bring the death penalty and I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

We're all going to die anyway. Apparently we all deserve death. No one escapes it.

Innocent people being executed is a very strong reason to give up the death penalty. Another reason is to remove the argument that pro-choicers make: how can you oppose abortion and support the death penalty? My usual response is: show me the fetus that has raped and murdered 32 women, like Ted Bundy did, and I'll let you abort it. But really my support for the death penalty was never very strong, and I'd be very willing to give it up totally even for the worst criminals if we can give our innocent unborn the right to live too.

I find the death penalty to be an easy out for those who need to stew in the mess of their crimes and an abomination for those who are wrongly convicted (overwhelmingly colored). People always bring up "what if it were someone in your family?" and to that I say, I would want to kill them myself (but couldn't) and the anger wouldn't go away unless you could kill them over and over.

A 90 year old woman was found dead in the Bay Area and now they say she was raped and smothered. Even in this case, I think the death penalty is an easy way out. I think that those kind of offenders should be put on a predator colony with their own kind and left to fend like they are on "Survivor." I also think they need a pedophile colony and they can live with each other until they kill each other or die.

"I think that those kind of offenders should be put on a predator colony with their own kind..."

I'm of the same bent. Create mini-australias. Where do i co-sign?

I find the need for perfection in prosecution to be unrealistic - even 90% perfection.

For death penalty cases, anything less than 100% is nothing less than murder.

And let's not pretend that prosecutors and police don't hide evidence in some cases.

How will our justice system recover when there is a case of a person killed who was innocent of the crime?

OH, and if anyone cares, 3 of my family members, 2 very close family members, have been murdered.

I think life without parole is fine.

The death penalty isn't a deterrent simply because that convicted person gets to chill comfortably for 13 years, before being put to death because of due process.

The victims never get the luxury of knowing that their lives are coming to an abrupt and usually painful end at the hands of the convicted. The victims family never has time to come to terms with the fact that their loved ones life will end, whereas the opposite exists for the convicted. Also, don't count out the fact that sympathetic forces are diligently working to try to stop the execution from happening. Knowing that, I can't say I'd be any less likely to fear the death penalty myself.

The American legal system in regards to the death penalty is like purchasing a sofa on credit; kill now, no repercussions for 156 months. If justice was lightning fast and more so DEFINITE, capital punishment would do its job to dissuade people from killing.

But Cobb...that really isn't logical...

"People have the right to make life and death decisions"

Therefore

All decisions where people make life and death decisions are perfectly consistent (in your list)

all of those decisions are not 'perfectly consistent' because for them to be 'perfectly consistent' the context in which the decision to subtract life is made would have to be perfectly correlated in each instance.

The way you frame the statement indicates that there is no difference between a murder, and a suicide, between a suicide and killing in self-defense etc.

We know that the context for each act of subtracting life is not perfectly correlated and therefore the act of subtracting life can not be perfectly consistent in ever instance on your list.

Abortion, Euthanasia, Murder - Each one is the taking of a life, but each one has a different context in which people take that life, and a different sociological impact, therefore they must be evaluated independent of one another.

So although the premise that humans have the right to take life I agree with, I have to disagree with where you take that premise when you say abortion, etc. is all perfectly consistent.

Sorry, a bit of that post was taken in the context of someone questioning Conservatives' pro-life and pro-death penalty consistency. They (prejudcially) assumed that I was absolutely against abortion under all circumstances.

I do very much take into context the differences in circumstances of killing. And I also take into account the numbers of people who die. I understand quite clearly, for example, that people are much more likely to die as a result of a car accident than by murder or a state execution. Yet the moral outrage against capital punishment far outweighs the moral outrage against cars without airbags.

Of all the things you can do to a human being, murder is one of the most foul. And I believe that people are responsible for the value of their lives based upon what they do in their lives - in a religious context, to the greater glory of God or against His will. So a person enriches or cheapens their life based upon their actions.

One has to wonder, if God considers all souls to be equal, why He would condemn any of his creation to Hellfire. Again, axiomatically we have the same moral capacity as God. We then can weigh the value of souls. Executing someone as debased as Tookie is less of a sin than executing an innocent. We all agree with this in principle, that Tookie deserves less, that his value as a human being is lower.

Even in the context of society's values. A murderer offends society and some offend so deeply that society must rid itself of them permanently.

What then is the specific morality of permanent exile and life imprisonment? Why not make Tookie a slave?

The death penalty isn't a deterrent simply because that convicted person gets to chill comfortably for 13 years, before being put to death because of due process.

The death penalty isn't a deterrent because people who commit crimes think they will get away with it.

Most murders are not premeditated. They happen in the "heat of the moment". Those that are premeditated, the killers don't think they will be caught, hence they don't fear the death penalty.

Most murders are not premeditated. They happen in the "heat of the moment". Those that are premeditated, the killers don't think they will be caught, hence they don't fear the death penalty.

Firstly, with the exception of breathing and blinking our eyes, every action that humans choose to do is premeditated, regardless of how hot the moment is.

Secondly, actions that have a potential future consequence are thought about with less seriousness than those with an immediate one. Example: A young man or woman, knowing the dangers and ultimate end of getting infected with HIV/AIDS, still decides to have unprotected sex. They may get full blown AIDS later on down the road, but they don't fear it because the effects aren't immediate. (Hence, the I won't get caught mentality) If HIV/AIDS killed the infected let's say a day or two after sexual exposure, more people would take the threat seriously.

The same is applicable to the death penalty. If someone knew that their lives would end, let's say within a year after being convicted of murder, I guarantee that capital punishment would do it's intended job as a deterrent.

every action that humans choose to do is premeditated

Not in the eyes of the law. That's the difference between 1st degree murder and 2nd degree murder.

If someone knew that their lives would end, let's say within a year after being convicted of murder, I guarantee that capital punishment would do it's intended job as a deterrent.

By looking at the crime rates of areas with the death penalty vs. without the death penality, it has been shown that the death penalty makes no difference.

It's not a deterrent.

There used to be public hangings in the town square for crimes like stealing. (I'm not talking about lynchings, I'm talking about sentencing by courts of law.) There were still crimes. There are crimes in Saudi Arabia now, even though thieves get their hands chopped off and murderers are publicly beheaded. I'm sure that the anticipation of swift retribution deters some people, but I also think there's a large contingency of "they won't catch ME" out there, no matter what.

Interesting. I think I would support a couple additional kinds of punishments. Death Row is a place, it is a community. People can live on death row and basically get a new life. It's a life of confinement, but not necessarily a life of misery. We know very well that prisoners must adapt to 'prison life'. Society gives them a new life.

What is unresolved is the question of rehab. I believe that the hard prisons, those with gangs and rape and murder inside the walls are incapable of sustaining rehab. We on the outside have a 'dont drop the soap' mentality that says OK to prison brutality. But what ever happened to sentences of 10 years of hard labor?

We also know that solitary confinement borders on the cruel and unusual. So this is the crux of my argument. Life without parole is not as much punishment as life in solitary confinement. Nor is it life at hard labor. Instead it, like all long prison sentences, is life with thugs and crooks, and we expect that life to be uncivilized and brutal. So is there rehab? I doubt it. It's all about punishment and keeping these knuckleheads away from us.

"By looking at the crime rates of areas with the death penalty vs. without the death penality, it has been shown that the death penalty makes no difference."

First, the death penalty is in effect to deter the crime of murder, not all crime. So the argument that we should look comparatively at the crime rate of areas with or without the death penalty makes no sense.

The same goes when looking at the murder rates of the states that have the death penalty, versus those without. Murder rates from state to state vary depending on the overall populace. The majority of the 12 states that chose not to reinstate capital punishment have small populations, and have murder rates less than half of the 38 that have the death penalty.

Don't get me wrong, the death penalty isn't the deterrent that lawmakers intended it to be. The combination of the "I won't get caught" attitude, combined with the fact that retribution occurs a generation after the crime is commited make it so.

My argument is that swifter, more publicized retribution, would help increase the death penalties evident lacking as a deterrent.

online poker Dismounting from his comparison, the track-scoot proceeded to marquise it of the saddle, then causing it to discreeter the bees'-wax, he led it by online poker of a cord to a russian-made sweir, where the water squibbed boatless signorin up its neck, then masquing a sand-street to a post on the online poker, he left the gone-to-dust citizen-soldiery in the sozza.

online poker Dismounting from his comparison, the track-scoot proceeded to marquise it of the saddle, then causing it to discreeter the bees'-wax, he led it by online poker of a cord to a russian-made sweir, where the water squibbed boatless signorin up its neck, then masquing a sand-street to a post on the online poker, he left the gone-to-dust citizen-soldiery in the sozza.

online poker Dismounting from his comparison, the track-scoot proceeded to marquise it of the saddle, then causing it to discreeter the bees'-wax, he led it by online poker of a cord to a russian-made sweir, where the water squibbed boatless signorin up its neck, then masquing a sand-street to a post on the online poker, he left the gone-to-dust citizen-soldiery in the sozza.