Death Penalty

[InformedIgnorance]

This thread is intended to discuss and debate the concept of the death penalty, its pros and cons, the possible types of crimes that you support the penalty to be imposed for and so forth.

There are of course many problems with the death sentence:
- Purpose of Judicial Process (Is the judicial process for this sort of crime intended to rehabilitate those convicted? Is it intended to minimise the capacity for the convicted to offend again? Is it intended to recognise and serve to offset to some extent the suffering of victims and damage incurred? etc)
- Right to / Sanctity of Life (Can an individual's life be legitimately taken away by decision of some court? Do people have the right to end lives? Often linked to the concept of life being a god given gift)
- Lack of Redress (If killed, then later found to be incorrect, this cannot be redressed or 'made good' through compensation or whatever)

However on the plus side:
- Prevents the convicted from offending again
- Redresses (to an extent) the inability of the established judicial process to offset suffering of victims and/or damage inflicted
- Reduced costs of imprisonment (yes, that IS a valid point)


This thread was triggered after I read some news from Iran: Iran sentences four to death in fraud case

Where a white collar crime was seen as earning a death penalty and I realised that I completely agreed given the sheer scope of the impact, the fact that the crime was not a violent crime (up until this point I had only really considered Murder, Rape and Torture as being crimes that I might consider worthy of punishment by death), it made me recall the GFC and the white collar crime we have seen responsible for so much pain and suffering, as well as a not insignificant number of deaths (suicides most commonly) and I realised that I had long since held the position (at least subconsciously) that some of these white collar crimes are just as deserving of jail or death as some drunkard beating a man to death.

Now for me, I consider that those within society who diminish or curtail the excise of the rights of others, have forfeited their own rights in comparative measure; nor do I believe life is sacred or divine. Therefore, I have come up with a list of things that I require and if these are satisfied then I am in favour of the death penalty.

- Sentence that would exceed twice the predicted remaining lifespan of the individual (sans any non age specific health concerns)
- Delayed sentence of between 5-10 years to provide possibility of appeal
- Crime against Persons: murder, rape or torture (without significant mitigation)
- Crime against Property: ??? I have no idea how to define this, but I can describe it as follows
--- fraudulent or criminal wealth extraction against any individual such that their wealth is degraded below the capacity to sustain themselves ((YES THIS IS HARSH, would make crimes against the poor MUCH more harshly punished))
--- fraudulent or criminal wealth extraction against any significantly large group of individuals such that their total wealth is degraded to such an extent that their capacity to maintain standard of living falls by more than 10% on average
- Crime against the State: ??? High treason; poisoning water reservoirs and what not I suppose

 

[Jean Valjean]

In my knowledge 99% of all people on the death-row prophesies and adress the term "..thus says the Lord."

It makes me...

Well I go for a no!

Murder, always unintentionally. The people condemned to death always acted in haste (Such as taking law for his own, and either sent the destroyer to execute justice or acted judge condemning the criminal to death)
Rape, only occurs with married couples. I wouldn't send Christoffer Robin to the death-row nomatter how malicious he is to his woman.
Theft is paid back seven fold when caught. I actually become richer by having Thives in my appartment. It only becomes more costly for them.
Terrorism... I wouldn't send Joan Boez there either!

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

I do not support the death penalty.

 

[Jean Valjean]

To inform you all yay sayers. Don't forget the Law of Moses. The first commandment God gave man was "thou shall not touch or eat on the forbidden fruit".

I go for 30 whiplashes for theft 100 for foolish behavior. Slavery for lazyness and hard work under hard yokes for different crimes.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

There are plenty of people who deserve the death penalty. I don't trust our highly fallible legal systems for telling who they are, though. As long as there is the faintest chance of executing an innocent person, I can't support the death penalty.

 

[Jean Valjean]

99% of the prisoners in gitmo prophesies...

 

[Jean Valjean]

99% of all women doing an abortion pray the lord for mercy upon their souls...

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

99% of the prisoners in gitmo prophesies...

...OKay...?

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

99% of all women doing an abortion pray the lord for mercy upon their souls...

And you have a citation for this?

 

[Jean Valjean]

In my experience...

 

[Jean Valjean]

may I ask, have you ever eaten an apple??

So winne is the pedophile, bunny is the addict, rue is the drunkard, tiger is the violent uncontrolled man, ior is the schizophrenic, and nille is the sexual immoral. Atleast according to the criminal stereotypes modern lawsystem follow. That's the material we see in prison.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

Okayyyy.

 

[Jean Valjean]

All of them walk the death-row...

I find that a problem.

 

[Jean Valjean]

So the problem with Lex Luthor is that he doesn't know that Louis Lane wants to be saved by her superman. She always make herself a victim on purpose so that Superman will save her.

 

[metis]

If a society has jails and prisons, I oppose the death penalty on both religious and secular grounds.

 

[Jean Valjean]

The problem with secular way to reason against death penalty, is that in my experience lifetime sentence usually is worse then death penalty. I speak with a belief in eternal life and life after this. I speak in experience with church doctrines. What i am saying is that the life time sentenced get several executioners trying to execute jusitice through death penalty several times without knowing that the person accused already suffered death penalty. There is an eternal life. The psyche is eternal. So the winne, and tiger get several death penalties after their trial, with out the diffrent executioners knowledge of the life after this. Christians have inherit eternal life. Most people in the death cell are christians, or have faith in the Lord. Living with blood guilt is punishment enough for the accused. In my experience the exorcist had bloodguilt and what you see on the motion picture is to live with murder and blood guilt.

 

[metis]

How many times have we seen people on death row released because later evidence clearly showed they were innocent? Don't their lives count whereas we can just throw them away? It's bad enough that they may have to be in prison, but then the "solution" is to just execute them? A man was just released about 2 or so weeks ago because dna tests showed he was not the killer, and he looked pretty happy to be out to me.

In Torah, the Law that allowed for executions was given at a time when we were in the Sinai and had no jails or prisons. But once we moved into eretz Israel and built them, then executions became so rare that the Talmud has it that if more than one person is executed in the entire land over a seven-year period, then the courts are being overly brutal.

How many times do we see in the Writings of the Prophets the word "mercy"? Murders are often "crimes of passion", which shouldn't excuse them but which often connotes that "there's more to the story".

 

[Altfish]

I do not support the death penalty.

Yes, the same here.
It is one measure of how barbaric a country is.
In the UK we outlawed this practice in 1965, the last execution was (IIRC) in 1964. I think there still was a punishment by death for treason (it was never used) but that too got abolished in the 1990s. The European Human Rights Laws prohibits its reintroduction.
Mind you, some of the mad Brexiteers will probably want it bringing back.

Since its abolition, I think of all the miscarriages of justice that would have led to people being killed by the state. The Birmingham 6 and the Guildford 4 come to mind.

 

[Jean Valjean]

If i were judge in modern times i would sentence all guilty murderers to the free town our authorities hold for man slayer accused persons. You can read about the free town in the books of moses, and in christian nations church and authorites has this free town for killers to prevent their enemies to vangence the killer. In my experience all murder accused crime happand unintentionally, or the person feels such regret his conscience condemn him so much living with the crime is enough. - Inquire life for life would many times be more humane.

 

[Jean Valjean]

If we see the benefits with death penalty is that as the guilty murderer life is inquired the victim of the crime is released from the tomb and hades or the ocean give the victim life back. We however live in such land that the people execute juctice are criminals without christian morals and christian values and ethics. life for life would give back that victim his life. There are other ways to execute juctice. Forgive the accused and send an apostle to give back the life of the victim.