Do You Support Capital Punishment?

[ER]

Do You Support Capital Punishment? Just a friendly curious question here, no judgment call whatever anyone's views might be, but do you support capital punishment? I don't and the fact it goes on in this society is something that bothers me a lot. No, not to the point where I make a big issue of it or argue about it protest it or anything, just....it disturbs me in a strangely deep way, and where I was tonight some of us were talking about the topic.

For one thing I place a real value on human life and think the rights of an individual to exist should supersede the authority of a state (state in the broadest sense) to end someone's existence. I also think execution is too easy on a murderer. A killer dwells on death row for a decade and then drifts off to sleep, only to often become a hero to subgroups of our culture? How about instead a convicted murderer spends the rest of his natural life doing hard physical labor ten hours a day six days a week, surrounded in a cell by photographs of his victim(s)? Let's see anyone find the glam in that.

But, no, I don't think putting someone to death is morally right or logical. It also raises the possibility of imposing the ultimate penalty on someone who is innocent. The death penalty is not without its effectiveness (I mean, hey, ya seen Ted Bundy killing any women lately?) but still it invokes a negative reaction in me that capital punishment exists, is imposed, is carried out.

Now, blowing someone's brains out in self-defense or possibly in war, heck, I'm all in favor of that, I'm not a pacifist or anti-gun, just not behind state-supported extinction of life as a response to a crime.

Yes, yes, I'm a bleeding heart, I know, lol.

[Ash]

For especially heinous crimes, yes, I definitely support the death penalty.
I'd go so far as to say they should bring back the old methods of execution like hanging, beheading etc...

And that's all I'm going to say.

[Rev. Powell]

No.  The reason is simple: any risk of putting an innocent person to death is too great a risk.  Life imprisonment is punishment enough, and it's reversible if a mistake is made.

[CheezeFlixz]

I support public execution, draw and quarter them I say, sell tickets to it and pay off the debt ... better yet get two death rower and have gladiator fights.

[RCMerchant]

Yes. If you kill someone,or rape some one,or kidnap someones child....you should die. I heard somewhere that some people should die....thats just common knowledge. I would agree with that.

[ghouck]

I do, but here in the US, our justice system needs to be MUCH better before I'll support it. I would say being caught red handed by at least two people an you do not leave their sight between the crime and the arrest, then that's a start. The standards for conviction need to be sky-high.
The problem is, our system sucks. Just now there are MANY people getting re-tried because they were convicted on some weird analysis of bullet lead where they SAID they could tell if the lead from a bullet at a crime scene came from the same batch as another sample of lead. There are MANY people convicted by that "science" which the supreme court has recently found to be unreliable. Also, there is so much garbage that goes on in court, as an example, often times, a person who is a witness for the prosecution, came to be because they were beforehand a SUSPECT, , ok fine, , but often the jury doesn't know that. So the jury sees no reason for that person to be lying, , yet the BIGGEST reason of all is there, they just aren't allowed to know. The standards for interrogation is ridicules, and often the police exploit HUGE mental advantages. There's a case in the states somewhere that a guy confessed to a crime (rape I believe) and was MUCH later cleared by the innocence project. The police told him that requesting a lawyer looked bad (he wasn't smart enough to know better, but that's not a crime), and they interrogated him for over 12 hours. He was on the brink of unconsciousness when he answered 'yes' to some question that implicated him, and THAT was all the jury ever heard. A person like Dahlmer or Robert Hanson, where there's piles of overwhelming evidence for each of many many crimes, then I'd lean towards it. That said, I don't think Tookie was convicted on high enough of a standard for the death penalty to be acceptable.
There was a special on TV called "The re-trial of Evan Zimmerman" where Evan was convicted of murder, and there were SO many flaws in that trial and the investigation, and the story followed the re-trial. There was some forensic scientist that testified in the first trial that a phone cord in his house matched the dead woman's strangulation marks. First, they withheld the fact that they found FIBERS in the wound, fibers that matched her clothing, a part of which was missing IIRC. In the second trial, the scientist said that during the investigation, one of the investigators handed him the phone cord and told him "your job is to match THAT cord to THAT corpse", so he did. There were SO many HUGE errors, and the worse the trial went for the prosecutors, the MORE they begged for him to take a plea. They weren't interested in JUSTICE, they were interested in their SCORECARD.
Then people get cleared for the wrong reasons: There was a pastor at a church in AK who lived across the street from the church. Two guys had broken in and he went over with a gun to figure it out. He went in and they went out somewhere else, when he shot them, from behind, from within the building while they were OUTSIDE. In AK it's NOT legal to use deadly force in protection of property unless that property in an immediate form of life-support. He didn't only kill people in defense of property, but as they were FLEEING, and when he was in no danger. He walked, but, I believe if a person can walk so wrongly, I believe one could be convicted just as wrongly.

[indianasmith]

I support capital punishment in principle - I believe it to be a balanced and symmetrical act of justice, properly meted out to those who wantonly take human life with no mitigating circumstances.
  HOWEVER, I do recognize there are deep flaws in our system.  Because I do believe in capital punishment as the ultimate sanction, I firmly believe that those accused of capital crimes should be given every opportunity, including mandatory, state-funded DNA testing, to prove their innocence.  But, if guilt is clearly and firmly established . . . well, as we say in Texas, there are just some folks that need killing.

[Newt]

I agree with RC and Indy.  Some people need to be gone.

[Doc Daneeka]

Well, I suppose it would be hard to judge in a scientific way but I think it depends on what the perp is like. If there is any doubt they committed the crime, or they show true remorse give them life. If they kill and want to be some kind of martyr, give them life (And put the a***oles on suicide watch too). If they kill and you see them chuckling that they "got away with it", show them that they didn't.

[Eyesore]

I support it for 1st degree murder, and believe it should be expanded to include kiddie raper's as well.

[Dennis]

I support capital punishment for certain violent crimes like murder or rape of any type, or killing a person or persons during the commission of another crime. The average citizen has a right to be safe and secure in his home and property, to be able to walk the streets and not have to worry about being attacked by criminals. I also feel that guilt in these cases should be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, that if and when found guilty in a capitol case a person should receive an automatic appeal but if this appeal process is exhausted then the execution should be performed in a quick and humane manner as possible. Our system is far from perfect and because it is made up of and enforced by imperfect people there will be mistakes on both sides of this issue. I'm sure each of us could come up with several examples to support each side of this argument. Unfortunately this is the best system we've come up with so far and we're kind of stuck with it till a better one comes along.

[Doggett]

No.
It doesn't work as a deterrent other wise there would be no murders in capital punishment country.
It has nothing to do with justice, killing someone won't un-do the damage that person has done. Killing someone seems more like revenge and you can't have a justice system based on revenge.

The whole we're gonna kill people who kill people attitude seems a bit foolish.

Luckily I live in a country that doesn't have it.

"An eye for an eye will make us all blind"

Life is too important to waste and we must show that even to the murderers. Not killing them proves to them that killing is wrong in all circumstances, even if that person does deserve it.

[ghouck]

It doesn't work as a deterrent other wise there would be no murders in capital punishment country.

Actually it does, states with the death panalty do have lower murder rates than those without. (As I have found since being informed so by people on this board, possibly in this very THREAD). Nobody ever said it was going to 100% eliminate murder, but it does what it intends to do: it helps.

Here's the deal: You take a guy and put him in prison for 40 years for murder, that means someone else is getting forced out the other end of the system. So, 40 people getting their third DWI or beating their wife go FREE instead of each doing the year they should, or 4 rapists do 2 years instead of 12. The whole "we're gonna kill people who kill people" is spot on, unless you decide tha anyone that commits murder never does it again. People point out "revenge" for the dead, no, it's protection for the LIVING.

[Doggett]

It doesn't work as a deterrent other wise there would be no murders in capital punishment country.

Actually it does, states with the death panalty do have lower murder rates than those without. (As I have found since being informed so by people on this board, possibly in this very THREAD). Nobody ever said it was going to 100% eliminate murder, but it does what it intends to do: it helps.

They should have no murder rates. Capital punishent is good because it helps!!!
That's not a good enough reason for killing someone.
Because they're a killer isn't a good enough reason to kill someone, either.
I guess, you and I are gonna disagree.

[ghouck]

Ok, , I'm just not such an extremist that I think anything less than 100% success is a failure. It helps, and that's what we're looking to do, HELP lower the murder rate.

I can't think of a better reason to kill someone than "Because they are a killer"