Another Reason Why the Death Penalty Needs to Go

Originally Posted By ecdc

<a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06/21/texas.execution.ap/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/06
/21/texas.execution.ap/index.html</a>

Reading this story, it was another impression that killing people is wrong, regardless of the horrible things they may have done.

Whether this man is guilty or not (and it sounds like he is) he should have been locked away forever.

 

Originally Posted By ADMIN

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Originally Posted By ADMIN

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Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA

Man, I wish I could think in such black and white terms.

I just can't do it.

 

Originally Posted By berol

My logic goes like this. We highly prize innocent life. If something kills an innocent, it is bad. Capital punishment does that. If I support capital punishment, then I'm supporting the killing of innocents which makes me bad. I'm not bad, I'm only drawn that way. So, I'm anti even before I find out about stories like the above.

Quickie version: the life of 1 innocent person is worth far more to me than the death of infinite guilties.

Joke version: I'm anti-death penalty and I'll kill anyone who disagrees with me! (You'd be amazed how many people don't get it, "but you're contradicting yourself cuz...")

 

Originally Posted By berol

geez, missed 2 admins while typing. Wonder how many more I'll miss while I type this.

 

Originally Posted By CrouchingTigger

I read the article, and it simply sounds like justice was served.

 

Originally Posted By Dirk_D_from_Oregon

The death penalty does not need to go.

 

Originally Posted By Shooba

>>the life of 1 innocent person is worth far more to me than the death of infinite guilties.<<

It comes down to that for me too. I also wonder how many guilty people who face the death penalty are 100% to blame - I think there must be a lot of mental health issues at play.

And besides, life in prison is decent enough punishment as far as I'm concerned.

 

Originally Posted By ecdc

"Man, I wish I could think in such black and white terms.

I just can't do it."

I hear you, Jim, I really do. I'm usually not much of a black and white thinker myself. And in the most horrific of cases, I find I don't much care about the individual person who's been found guilty. I find I have a hard time caring whether the DC sniper lives or dies - maybe that makes me a bad person or a bad Christian or whatever, but I just loathe the man.

But the death penalty makes us ugly people, IMO. Revenge is never the right motivation and death strikes me as such an archaic form of "justice"; why not chop off hands for stealing while we're at it.

Life in prison without parole seems plenty to me. A lot of prisons have 23 hours of confinement for the worst offenders; sounds great if you ask me.

 

Originally Posted By berol

"life in prison is decent enough punishment"

People say it costs too much, but they're asking me to put a price on innocent life.

 

Originally Posted By Dirk_D_from_Oregon

People who should have been put to death have set up murders of other people from within the prison walls. Innocent people were killed by not giving a convicted killer the death penalty. The murdered include prison guards, fellow inmates, and innocent men and women outside of prison.

Contrast that fact to those who worry an innocent person MIGHT be killed by having the death penalty.

People who say the death penalty needs to go are willing to gamble with a portion of society -- such as the lives of additional innocent victims -- in order to save the life of every murderer.

 

Originally Posted By tiggertoo

<<People say it costs too much, but they're asking me to put a price on innocent life.>>

Death row inmates are usually incarcerated for up-teen years before the deed is done away. And the appeals process costs a bundle itself. I say give them life; let them mull over what they could have be doing with all those years.

 

Originally Posted By Dirk_D_from_Oregon

Or find a quicker way to push them through the system so they can be executed in a year after they are convicted, not 2 decades. That will save some money, if money is the concern.

 

Originally Posted By berol

Blood isn't on my hands if a guard or whoever is killed, it's on the killer's hands. Blood *is* on my hands when an innocent is executed.

The reasons the appeals process is so long and expensive are trying to weed out as many undeserved executees as they can and keeping the justice system in line.

 

Originally Posted By Dirk_D_from_Oregon

--Blood *is* on my hands when an innocent is executed.--

And how many documented cases do you have where that has happened? I can give you plenty of cases where convicted killers who were allowed to live killed innocent people.

 

Originally Posted By berol

"how many documented cases do you have where that has happened?"

I don't know the numbers, but 1 is too many for me and the total is > 1. I don't see current laws as innocent-proof, so I can't be for them.

"I can give you plenty of cases where convicted killers who were allowed to live killed innocent people."

This would be the same "blood on their hands/blood on mine" thing. I'm all for locking people in a box for life, but that's unconstitutional, apparently.

This is kinda like arguing abortion. How the base point strikes people defines which way they go, not really something you can argue or convince. It's interesting to see how others think, tho.

 

Originally Posted By Eric Paddon

Any person who is against the death penalty but for abortion is ultimately a hypocrite of the first order from my standpoint. If someone is pro-life on abortion but anti-death penalty I can at least respect that position based on a sanctity for all life forms perspective.

But for me, the real question I pose to anti-death penalty people for which I have never once received a straight answer to: Was it "immoral" to have executed a single Nazi war criminal at Nuremberg? And if Hitler had been captured, should he have been kept alive at taxpayer expense for the rest of his life?

 

Originally Posted By barboy

"the real question I pose to anti-death penalty people for which I have never once received a straight answer to: Was it "immoral" to have executed a single Nazi war criminal at Nuremberg?"


Here's a straight answer for you Eric: NO

But this man like 99% of those executed in the US: YES, it is very immoral.

 

Originally Posted By DVC_dad

I would be interested to see what opinion would be if a criminal brutally murdered your mother or sister or wife or daughter in the worst way.

You may SAY HERE that you would not be in favor of the death penalty, but it's always EASY to make claims until it's your LOVED one who is taken away from you by some freakshow of humanized evil.

I am NOT saying that I am in favor of, or against the death penalty...just trying to make sure a claim soooo strong as this, has a good persepctive.