Death Penalty - News, Thoughts, Info

[dreadgeek]

So a quick question:

Hypothetical 1: We live in a culture where vendetta is allowed. I think your brother killed my father, so I kill him. Justice has been served, revenge has been had. It turns out years later, that another man killed my father.

Hypothetical 2: We live in a culture with the death penalty. The state thinks your brother killed my father so they try, convict and kill him. Justice has been served, revenge has been had. It turns out years later, that another man killed my father.

Question 1: What substantial consequential difference is there between these two?
Question 2: What is the substantial moral difference between these two?

Cheers
Aj

Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Gemme

They do have that right, unfortunately.



I'm sure I'm in the minority, but when someone acts in cold blood, I go cold towards them. I'm not talking about petty theft or small time crimes where no one was hurt but for murder, rape, torture, and maiming (and other similar and horrific (especially premeditated) crimes), they cease to exist as a human to me when they lose their humanity towards another.

I don't want money going to support their existence in this world for years or decades. Money that could go towards starving people whose only crime is to be a victim of hard times. Money towards educational programs for children to get out of bad locales and to become bigger and greater than they could ever imagine. Money to help people SURVIVE.

I don't want them breathing fresh air and laughing and experiencing joy. They stole that from someone else. Someone who doesn't get the chance to do those things anymore.

I'm especially cold towards those who harm children. I feel that children who are abused, especially sexually, are in effect murdered. They will NEVER be that innocent child again and who they could have been is gone forever. They are forced through a rebirth of sorts that is cruel and excrutiatingly painful and unnecessary. The people who prey on kids are the worst of the lot, imo, and should be spared absolutely no mercy.

I do realize that I am a cold, heartless bitch in regards to this topic. I'm okay with that. I've personally known someone who killed his partner and, though I liked him very much, would support the death penalty for him. No favoritism.

As for the advances in technology and DNA, I do believe that older cases should routinely be reevaluated to be absolutely certain since, as many have pointed out, "justice" has been carried out differently throughout time.

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

So a quick question:

Hypothetical 1: We live in a culture where vendetta is allowed. I think your brother killed my father, so I kill him. Justice has been served, revenge has been had. It turns out years later, that another man killed my father.

Hypothetical 2: We live in a culture with the death penalty. The state thinks your brother killed my father so they try, convict and kill him. Justice has been served, revenge has been had. It turns out years later, that another man killed my father.

Question 1: What substantial consequential difference is there between these two?
Question 2: What is the substantial moral difference between these two?

Cheers
Aj

Cheers
Aj

I'm not saying that I wouldn't want the accused to go through the system and have good representation and the benefit of the doubt. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty. But I also don't want to not give the death penalty 'in case' he really didn't do it.

Each case is individual.

If there is sufficient proof that a person killed another, then why is it MY moral responsibility? S/he did it. May their punishment fit their crime.

The thing about posting in these type of threads is that the debate gets heated and, inevitably, someone tries to prove their point and sway others.

I won't be swayed on this matter.

[dreadgeek]

I'm not trying to sway you. I'm assuming that you have given this all necessary thought and have gamed out the consequences to your satisfaction. Working on that assumption, I just want to know what are the consequential and moral differences between killing the wrong man in personal vengeance and killing the wrong man in state-sponsored vengeance.

I'm just not comfortable with executing innocent people and since there are now a number of posts complaining not just about the lack of sufficient numbers of executions but that the convicted get appeals and are housed in comfort while they wait, one cannot help but get the feeling that what people would prefer is that people are convicted, sentenced, taken out and executed directly.

I'm not talking about a case where someone *actually* committed the crime, I'm talking about a case where someone *didn't* commit the crime but are executed none-the-less. I'm also very uneasy about the punishment fitting the crime. Here's why:

Man breaks into home, kills everyone in the home. There are signs that rape and torture occurred. He gets the death penalty.

Man breaks into home, kills everyone in the home. There are signs that rape and torture occurred. He gets 50 - life.

The difference? It works like this:

White perp/white victim. Second scenario.
White perp/black victim. Second scenario.
Black perp/white victim. First scenario
Black perp/black victim. Second scenario as likely as first.

Now, I'm not saying that whites never end up on death row--obviously they do. I'm not saying blacks always end up on death row--obviously they don't. However, statistically, if you hold the relevant details of the crime constant what you see sketched above are the most likely scenarios.

If folks were talking about innocent beyond any reasonable doubt, perhaps but that's not the general sense I’m getting. Rather, I have the feeling that folks would prefer a judicial system that was even more stacked against the defendant than it already is, where it is far more speedy, where the police have far more leeway, where the prisons are closer to medieval dungeons than they are currently, and where the courthouse and the executioner are right next door to one another.


Cheers
Aj

Originally Posted by Gemme

I'm not saying that I wouldn't want the accused to go through the system and have good representation and the benefit of the doubt. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty. But I also don't want to not give the death penalty 'in case' he really didn't do it.

Each case is individual.

If there is sufficient proof that a person killed another, then why is it MY moral responsibility? S/he did it. May their punishment fit their crime.

The thing about posting in these type of threads is that the debate gets heated and, inevitably, someone tries to prove their point and sway others.

I won't be swayed on this matter.

I say Death Penalty to all those "Confessing or Plea Dealing Out" to avoid a Death Warrant... They Truely, Absolutely, WithOut a Doubt are 100% Guilty.

[Ebon]

I'm totally for the Death Penalty although I think it's an easy way out for the person that committed the crimes. People that hurt kids and shit get off too easy for me with the death penalty.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Organicbutch

I'm totally for the Death Penalty although I think it's an easy way out for the person that committed the crimes. People that hurt kids and shit get off too easy for me with the death penalty.

So you don't have a problem with torture?

Cheers
Aj

[Ebon]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

So you don't have a problem with torture?

Cheers
Aj

No not at all. For people that hurt children.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Organicbutch

No not at all. For people that hurt children.

Hmmm...what about rape? Should rapists be tortured? What about murderers? What about terrorists? What about people who don't molest children but, say, beat them? Break shovel handles around their ass or make them walk into a hospital on a broken leg?

Can you describe to me how what you are describing is justice and not simply revenge?

Cheers
Aj

[Ebon]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Hmmm...what about rape? Should rapists be tortured? What about murderers? What about terrorists? What about people who don't molest children but, say, beat them? Break shovel handles around their ass or make them walk into a hospital on a broken leg?

Can you describe to me how what you are describing is justice and not simply revenge?

Cheers
Aj

I didn't describe anything you did. But people that molest children should feel pain. I have no sympathy for them at all.

In the case of murder it depends.
I think male rapists should have their genitals cut off.
Someone beating their children is a different story.

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

*snip* I'm not talking about a case where someone *actually* committed the crime, I'm talking about a case where someone *didn't* commit the crime but are executed none-the-less.

Cheers
Aj

I was referencing situations in which the person, regardless of color, gender, or religion, has been proven guilty.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Gemme

I was referencing situations in which the person, regardless of color, gender, or religion, has been proven guilty.

Issues of whether the United States exhibits the cultural maturity to actually exercise the death penalty to the side, my concern is not that we will execute the right people, it's that we will execute the wrong people. No one who is not convicted of a crime faces the death penalty, the problem is that in about a third of those cases it turns out the wrong person was convicted. As inconvenient as those cases are for proponents of the death penalty they should concern us and my view of the death penalty is seen through the lens of wrongful conviction and disparate treatment.

When we don't abstract this out but place it in the context of the real world, what we are talking about is a legal system that, left to its own devices, will kill black at up to four times the rate of white men holding every other relevant factor constant. When THAT is corrected and a black man is no more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man, I might be persuadable but at present, given the reality of the American criminal justice system as it is and not as we might like it to be I know that what we are talking about is a system that will fall most heavily on black and Hispanic men.

Cheers
Aj

[Naneegirl]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Issues of whether the United States exhibits the cultural maturity to actually exercise the death penalty to the side, my concern is not that we will execute the right people, it's that we will execute the wrong people. No one who is not convicted of a crime faces the death penalty, the problem is that in about a third of those cases it turns out the wrong person was convicted. As inconvenient as those cases are for proponents of the death penalty they should concern us and my view of the death penalty is seen through the lens of wrongful conviction and disparate treatment.

When we don't abstract this out but place it in the context of the real world, what we are talking about is a legal system that, left to its own devices, will kill black at up to four times the rate of white men holding every other relevant factor constant. When THAT is corrected and a black man is no more likely to receive the death penalty than a white man, I might be persuadable but at present, given the reality of the American criminal justice system as it is and not as we might like it to be I know that what we are talking about is a system that will fall most heavily on black and Hispanic men.

Cheers
Aj

It will also fall a lot more on men, in general, versus women correct?