Is the death penalty right?

[No*s]

Which is why i like the biblical court procedures...some 70-odd guys have to determine whether someone is guilty or not...that way when they are sentenced to the death penalty you KNOW they are guilty!

No, it simply makes it less dependent on an individual. It's possible for groups to have incomplete evidence and draw an inaccurate conclusion from it . Sadly, there will never be certainty on matters like this, unless we video tape it.

A good movie about this is the original 1950s Twelve Angry Men. Information is so open to interpretation .

 

[shesha]

I am against the death penalty, what i think is that they should get life imprisonment without the chance for parol, this way they actually have to live with there crime. With the death penalty once its given there is no chance for a mistake to be fixed. No matter what type of killing it was i believe its wrong.

The death penalty goes along the lines of an eye for an eye you kill someone they you are killed, but that doesn't go along with the rest of the U.S. government. If you rape someone you do not get raped and if you rob someone you do not get robbed. so why does murder get the only exception?

Also just to bring up another point what does everyone think of the death penalty for mentally ill people, Even though it is not supposed to be done anymore it still is. I read an article about this one man who wanted to save his desert till after the execution. To me that person needs serious help not death.

 

[jewscout]

No, it simply makes it less dependent on an individual. It's possible for groups to have incomplete evidence and draw an inaccurate conclusion from it . Sadly, there will never be certainty on matters like this, unless we video tape it.

ah but your talking about 70-odd jewish men having to make a unanimous decision to use the death penalty...if there's even a doubt in one mind it doesn't happen...and when have 70-odd jewish men completely agreed on ANYTHING?

A good movie about this is the original 1950s Twelve Angry Men. Information is so open to interpretation .

That's a great movie!

 

[hoomer]

yes the death penalty is of course right....we should kill one another...we should allow the state to kill us......we should also chickens to not be de beaked on farms...we should allow george bush to pllute iraq with nucear waste,,,so we have to wait a few thousand million years for it to be a radiation free zone......

yes killing is god and neccessary.....all hail the new flesh

 

[michel]

I suppose my opposition to the death penalty is because I lack the need for revenge. When someone does something that is against what society deems correct, I ask myself, what would the Buddha do? What would Jesus do? I don't believe either of these teachers would advocate the taking of life as punishment for any reason. Neither man ever called for revenge in their teachings. So, I would fall under Geoman's statement The death penalty is wrong if you believe that protecting all life is correct because I do not believe you have to take life in order to protect life.

Maize; what would you have done had you been around when Hitler marched into Poland ? - and later, when he began his 'ethnic cleansing' ? I agree with your principles, and I share them. There was a thread ( I cannot recall the title) in which the general concensus seemed to be pointing to a 'Killing is morally wrong, but is sometimes necessary'.

Very recently here (I can't find the news link), a paranoid skitzophrenic came out of a prison for those with mental problems; he had served his sentence, and was 'deemed O.K' for society. Three hours after being released, he killed a passer-by for no apparent reason.

 

[hoomer]

Maize; what would you have done had you been around when Hitler marched into Poland ? - and later, when he began his 'ethnic cleansing' ? I agree with your principles, and I share them. There was a thread ( I cannot recall the title) in which the general concensus seemed to be pointing to a 'Killing is morally wrong, but is sometimes necessary'.

.

SAdy you are right...killing is neccessary..I hAVE recenty chaged my views on this.......

Killing imo...is wrong.....BUT clinging to a beleif that cna cause harm is ultimatly wrong.....

I iken this to a story about candy (sweets for us brits).......it goes like this:

If I give you a candy....it will make you smie....yum yum...nice sugar.....arent I being good to you....

If I give you 50 thousand tonnes of candy....I am being bad..as I am heping you to DIE!

the balance between the energies of "Mercy" and "SEVERITY"..the 4th and 5th emantions in kabbalah are a tricky one.........often a destructive energy can be BETTER than a creative one....

giving a drug addict drugs....is not always a good thing

 

[Scorn]

This gives me pause to think of two cases I know of here in Canada that if the death penalty were still here, in all likelihood those two men would be dead by now for crimes committed 25-30 years ago. Instead, and as a result of recent DNA testing both were exonerated and released as it was proven to the satisfaction of the courts, that they did not commit those murders.

 

[No*s]

ah but your talking about 70-odd jewish men having to make a unanimous decision to use the death penalty...if there's even a doubt in one mind it doesn't happen...and when have 70-odd jewish men completely agreed on ANYTHING?

Good point on the 70-odd Jewish men completely agreeing .

Seriously, numbers don't grant certainty to me. Misinformation, all of them sharing a prejudice (which isn't hard), and other such things can cause problems. Number doesn't grant certainty .

 

[Quoth The Raven]

I think if there is no doubt that the person committed the crime (and a case based on circumstantial evidence doesn't constitute enough proof for the death penalty, even with an overwhelming guilty verdict) and it's unlikey to have been a one off thing then go ahead.
For instance the man who walked around a tourist attraction in Tasmania and killed about 19 people. There is no doubt it was him, and he killed all those people who had never done a thing to him...3 year old children and the lot. As far as I'm concerned he forfeited his right to continued existence when he chased down 2 little girls hiding behind a tree and shot them in cold blood.
If it's a heinous crime and there is no doubt, I would gladly throw he switch myself. In this gentlemans case in particular my only regret would be that I couldn't do it more than once.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

I love the idea of the 70-odd Jewish men, though my brain likes to play with words, so I keep reading it as "70, odd, Jewish, men' which brings up some interesting images.'

I don't think murder, in any circumstance, is justified. As Michel so well put it (and I've been mentally putting it for awhile) it is better to let all the murderers in the world live than to kill one innocent person. (I'm not saying they should run free, as I also believe that life in prison is worse than death, but it's also much easier to let a person go home if they're proven innocent than to try to find a 'reset' button on the metaphorical electric chair.)

This is also one of those things where I should note that I'm not saying, if I were in a victim's family's situation, I wouldn't want to have the person who took my beloved one away from me killed, but that's one of the reasons I would prefer that the option wasn't in my or anyone else's hands. I know I'm a bit self-centered, but I wouldn't want to look back on that in regret.

One of the most beautiful speakers I've ever been able to listen to was when the mother of Matthew Sheppard spoke at our local community college. She spoke about forgiveness for the two people who had murdered her son, and I don't think I've ever been as moved.

 

[Saw11_2000]

Do I think the death penalty is right? That can be debatable on what you think is humane.

Do I support the death penalty? 110%

 

[Green Gaia]

Maize; what would you have done had you been around when Hitler marched into Poland ? - and later, when he began his 'ethnic cleansing' ?

I don't know.... I would have wanted him stopped, of course and most seem to jump to the conclusion that the only way to make him stop is if he were dead. If I had the opportunity to kill Hitler, knowing what would happen if I didn't, I would have to put aside my ethical and moral objections to murder, and kill the SOB. I wouldn't regret it, but I wouldn't rejoice in it either. Just as if my children were in danger from someone, I would not hesitate to protect them by whatever means necessary, even killing. But my comments earlier in this thread was about people who have already been caught and convicted and removed from the public.

 

[Sunstone]

One big problem with the death penalty is that the court system is fallible and consequently innocent people are sometimes put to death.

 

[groovydancer88]

Punish a person who killed someone ... by killing them? Wouldn't that make us guilty of the same crime? Even if it is guaranteed without a doubt that a person is guilty of murder (which as far as I can tell is the worst crime possible), doing what s/he did to her/him seems like an illogical thing to do. Plus there are so many cases where it's impossible to be entirely certain. I say put them in prison with no chance of parole, that way they can either grow to be sorry for what they have done, or they can live with the guilt (which I think would be much worse).

 

[groovydancer88]

For a secondairy reason that Noone on earth can have ANY reason to kill anyone/ anygroup and get away with it

So why should killing someone with the death sentance be any different?

In other words, I don't think two wrongs make a right.

 

[Halcyon]

The death penalty has no place in a modern civilised society, we now know that justice is never black or white and that mistaken convictions are not that uncommon.

If you execute a man and later find out he was innocent then there is nothing you can do to right that wrong, if you imprison an innoncent man at least you can let him go with an apology.

I find it ridiculous and repulsive that a supposedly civilised country still has the death penalty, especially in an age when our knowledge of mental illnesses as a cause of homocide is so great.

 

[SK2005]

No. It is not right.

 

[groovydancer88]

Trance -
I get what you're saying now. I misread what you wrote earlier.

 

[Halcyon]

Blunkett’s fight has been described as “outrageous”, “morally repugnant” and the “sickest of sick jokes”, but his spokesmen in the Home Office say it’s a completely “reasonable course of action” as the innocent men and women would have spent the money anyway on food and lodgings if they weren’t in prison. The government deems the claw-back ‘Saved Living Expenses’.

Yeah that is moronic, but at least the innocent people are still alive.

 

[Rick123123]

I say no for when you kill some one it takes away the ability for them to grow and change in that lifetime, the whole point of life is to grow into something more then you are now. I beleive inmates rather then being incarcerated should be helped into figuring out what is the cause for why they murdered and then through programs, such as; spirtual programs, social programs, andshould be encouraged to change themselves.