Associate
Against
Poll: The death penalty, are you for or against?
- Thread starter Robbo
- Start date
Soldato
For, 100%
There are people in Prison today that do not deserve a life, in fact there are people that have been let out of prison that do not deserve to live, I cannot imagine anyone saying that the Bulger killers can ever benefit society. Same goes for Huntley etc.
Prison is to soft as well, it should be a hated place, not a place where the prisoners have rights... and reoffend as all their mates are inside..
I don't get the USA with "Death Row" if they are guilty beyond reasonable doubt and have been sentenced to death, why are they not executed within a month of the sentence....
Anyway...
There are people in Prison today that do not deserve a life, in fact there are people that have been let out of prison that do not deserve to live, I cannot imagine anyone saying that the Bulger killers can ever benefit society. Same goes for Huntley etc.
Prison is to soft as well, it should be a hated place, not a place where the prisoners have rights... and reoffend as all their mates are inside..
I don't get the USA with "Death Row" if they are guilty beyond reasonable doubt and have been sentenced to death, why are they not executed within a month of the sentence....
Anyway...
Man of Honour
While you are correct, I'm going to try to do so anyway (although I doubt any of the pros will take any notice).
1) There is not the slightest evidence that the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. If you are proposing the DP for lesser crimes then think this over: if you are going to be executed anyway if you are caught, why leave any witnesses? So let's stick with murder. Most (>70%) murders are spur-of-the-moment crimes between two people who know each other. The intention to kill is formed so close in time to the event that there is no time to think rationally about it. The perp doesn't think of any consequences. Next, most considered murderers don't think they are going to be caught. Why do you think they go to so much trouble to clean up afterwards? If you don't think you will be caught, you don't care about hypothetical punishments. Finally, some murders such as terrorists are happy to die for the cause.
If your theory held even the slightest water then you'd expect the US to have a lower murder rate than the UK.
2) It's beyond reasonable doubt, not no doubt. There's always something missing, and more in murder cases than most crimes. The fact that some convictions are overturned makes clear that even in cases of no reasonable doubt, the jury can still be wrong (in some cases they were right, but that's a whole other problem). You can never have 100% certainty, so arguing for it to be applicable is silly.
M
Associate
I'm not really sure you are understanding people's critique, here...
Against.
Whilst I believe people deserve to die for certain crimes there's always the chance, no matter how minuscule, that someone is wrongly convicted.
In terms of a deterrence I don't think it provides anything further than life in prison, so from a taxpayers point of view the cheaper option should be chosen, which apparently is life in prison.
Whilst I believe people deserve to die for certain crimes there's always the chance, no matter how minuscule, that someone is wrongly convicted.
In terms of a deterrence I don't think it provides anything further than life in prison, so from a taxpayers point of view the cheaper option should be chosen, which apparently is life in prison.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42 said:
I was surprised to learn that when you factor in the legal process that would be necessary to execute someone it actually costs far more to execute then it does lock them up for life! So if you're looking at it from a protecting the tax payer point of view you either forget the SP or you get rid of the right to appeal and many other legal protections we enjoy...
Man of Honour
I'm against but some sentences are too light, on another note if I caught someone doing something bad enough I might unintentionally execute them myself (im talking horrendously bad). I suppose a fair majority of people would probably say the same thing, if someone stopped me mid act I would retrospectively thank them as I would not like to kill anyone. I think forever in prison devoid of all liberty is harsher than executing the perpetrator.
Man of Honour
Even if we allow that the evidence regarding cost will depend on individual circumstances (although from what I've seen on average it is more expensive to execute than to go for life imprisonment) I think the most you can say is that it is inconclusive, I don't think it supports the contention that execution is cheaper. Perhaps I should also caveat by saying it's not ordinarily cheaper in any legal system worthy of the name - you can certainly execute people cheaply, an axe is almost endlessly re-usuable and cheap to purchase but it's the supporting infrastructure that costs money.
Cost is a terrible argument for the death penalty but it's often blithely trotted out by people that it will be cheaper who've not done even the most rudimentary analysis of the available evidence. In selected cases it might be cheaper, in most cases it apparently is not.
Out of interest what is this new standard of proof you are proposing and why would you like to do away with the basic principles of our legal system? We have no standard of proof above "beyond a reasonable doubt" - there's still a fair amount of leeway within that for a conviction to be unsafe even where prima facie it's a certainty the person is guilty.
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
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- 10,938
138 Americans exonerated whilst on death row or after
execution.Timothy Evans – Executed on 9/3/1950 for killing his daughter at 10 Rillington Place. His neighbour John Reginald Halliday Christie was executed on 15/7/1953 for the crime after being found to be a serial killer. The fact that Christie was a special constable meant that no one believed that he could be a murderer whilst Evans was an illiterate welsh miner of poor health.
Colin Campbell Ross - An Australian executed in 24/4/1922 for the rape and murder of a child despite their being evidence that he was not guilty. He was posthumously pardoned in 2008.
Walter Rowland – Executed on 27/2/194. Even though he had an alibi from multiple police officers he had been released from prison after escaping the death sentence for killing his daughter which meant the jury thought he had form and convicted him. David Ware confessed to the crime but was not believed but went on to murder a woman in 1951.
George Kelly – Executed on 28/3/1950 but had his conviction quashed in June 2003.
Derek Bentley – Famous for his “Let him have it” quote was executed on 28/1/1953. His accomplice was a minor so was given a 10 year jail term. The phrase is ambiguous and heavily biased towards a police officer who had just had a colleague murdered by Christopher Craig. Pardoned in 1998.
Mahmood Hussein Mattan - Executed on 3/9/1952 in Cardiff for the murder of Lily Volpert. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction after hearing of evidence that another Somali seaman had committed the crime.
Edith Thompson - Executed on 9/1/1923. She had been having an affair with Frederick Bywaters who had actually committed the crime. Due to this connection she was guilty by common purpose.
Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns – Executed on 25/4/1952 when the evidence was circumstantial at best. They didn’t help themselves with confusing alibis and their criminal past. Questions still remain about their guilt or lack of.
William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) - Executed on 3/1/1946 for treason even though he was an American citizen. His Britishness extended to holding a fraudulently obtained fake passport. Because of this he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign. It shows how far the State will go to get it’s way.
Thousands of innocent people have been executed for crimes they never committed, that FACT alone should be enough for normal people to realise it's WRONG and fundamentally flawed!
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Soldato
Against.
If people are killed whilst being innocent, who do we kill for committing the murder?
Stupid argument, but it amuses me
kd
If people are killed whilst being innocent, who do we kill for committing the murder?
Stupid argument, but it amuses me
kd
Soldato
- Joined
- 8 Mar 2007
- Posts
- 10,938
To the people 'For' on the basis you think it's a harsher punishment, watch this...
I hope he does not get his wish for death and has to live out all the pain and mental anguish his deteriorating condition gives him.
I hope he does not get his wish for death and has to live out all the pain and mental anguish his deteriorating condition gives him.
Soldato
This is actually very true and has made me rethink my support for the DP.
A true life-long prison term in isolation is a punishment worse than death. But not in the UK where even people who have murdered are actually fed proper meals, are allowed time outside and even visits from family!
The murderer scum should be in solitary isolation 24/7 for life in a 6ft X 4ft windowless steel cell with no tv, no books, no visits and fed once a week through a slit in the door. The UK needs a Supermax like the Americans have.
The only way these scum should leave that cell is in a coffin. But then again we do not have "true" life sentences like elsewhere in the world. Wy cant we hand down 200-year sentences to murderers like they do across the pond?
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Newsflash - Britain is not America.
Well there you go then. Better let everyone go free then if we can't be sure.
Soldato
I agree with what you say but the result is that people who take anothers life in our country get very low sentences.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-18057711
This is just not right. Life should be life. They should enter in prison van and leave in long wooden box.
Unless they can be proven to not stand a chance of rehabilitation, I would not agree with using the death penalty. I would only condone it where the person is a grave and serious danger to the public if they ever got free.
I do agree sentences are too lenient, but i'm not suggesting killing all and sundry here, despite CRAZY's attempts to paint me as some unhinged maniac.
I do agree sentences are too lenient, but i'm not suggesting killing all and sundry here, despite CRAZY's attempts to paint me as some unhinged maniac.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 33,188
Dealing with criminals shouldn't be about exacting the most amount of pain possible, that is simply revenge, and vindictive. Killing someone(if it was done somewhat properly) would be far less stressful and horrible than spending 50 years being raped and beaten in prison before dying slowly from something in prison anyway.
Fact is, it can't be done these days, a HUGE reason it costs so much is the people who often get on death row. Sure there are people who campaign hard and work to get people off death sentences, but there are lawyers(on every side) who get paid a crapload of money, and every extra appeal means more hours rehashing the same evidence again with the same outcome with very little real work being done, while getting paid out of a bottomless pit. You can end up with a poor guy, innocent or guilty, being prosecuted by one group of lawyers paid for by the government who get more money for every appeal, and another group of lawyers for the defence, also being paid for by the government, who get more money for every appeal.... We're talking about quite literally billions of dollars in lawyers fee's and no reason they should give up on innocent or clearly guilty people.
You could argue that the extortionate cost in California per person executed would merely drop drastically if they only executed more people
$308mil per person now, kill 10 times more people, that drops, kill 1000 people, its cheaper than a life sentence. I'm mostly joking there.... I think.
Fact is in the overly litigious society, most death row guys spend years, even decades on death row with entire teams of lawyers both defence and prosecution fighting appeal after appeal and that is where all the big costs come from.
The simple costs are, slightly more expensive jail cell for 6 months vs a lifetime in a cheaper jail, its only the legal fee's that turn it into a joke cost wise.
Should we do it, yes, does it deter criminals, yes, a proper death setence, one where most people get off eventually isn't a deterant. if it was much more limited for cases where there are confessions, video, caught in the act only where there isn't any question.
CRAZY says thousands of innocent people have been executed, while saying only 138 were exonerated afterwards, and in this day and age, political agenda's rule more than the truth. If there is a particularly vocal group and no opposition group, what does the state have to lose by giving a pardon? Nothing, yes they can look good by pardoning someone if a group thinks he's innocent and no one thinks he's guilty. Some people are given pardons having done the crime but having been harshly dealt with or given an exceptional harsh sentence. MANY GUILTY people are pardoned if someone thinks they are worthy of it. Exonerated or pardoned does not automatically confirm without doubt they are innocent.
AS for thousands, we've killed 150k+ people in Iraq now, a crapload more in Afghanistan, of which a huge portion or completely and utterly innocent people, and this is just two of the illegal wars.
The government kills many many more people than the death penalty ever has in the US/UK combined at any stage its been illegal, usually by way of accident. The government/lawyers/judges will ALWAYS make mistakes, but they are trying to get rid of the worst members of society, nothing more or less. They aren't intentionally killing innocent people nor deciding that a higher innocent kill count than guilty is an acceptable loss for their goal, unlike the two wars we've been involved in where we've deemed innocents being killed a completely acceptable risk. America the "death penalty" country has still killed a very small portion of the criminal population largely out of fear of killing potentially innocent people. But as always, its shocking for a state to kill people it believes to be murderers/rapists, infact its uncivilised, but if we're killing innocent people in other countries without really giving a damn, that's ok.
Someone who commits a robbery and shoots and kills people, is seen as a murderer, someone who stands up during a robbery trying to defend himself or others and kills the criminal, is seen as killing in self defence and is in no trouble. Someone who walks in midway through and kills the guy trying to defend others by accident believing him to be the criminal, is also not guilty, he tried to do the right thing but accidentally did the wrong thing. Its all about intent, our entire law system is based on it. The death penalty is TRYING to do the right thing but sometimes getting it wrong, the intention is fine. Going to war in Iraq was flat out wrong(for the reasons given) and the lack of care over who gets killed is absolutely wrong, the sheer number of innocent people killed is shocking beyond reason, but its fine because its not "our" people.
Some of those cases CRAZY listed are simply **** cases to start with, but for me, if I had the choice of being beaten and raped in jail for 50 years on a bad case, or even a decade, I wouldn't be the same person coming out if I was randomly found innocent at a later date. I would PREFER to die somewhat peacefully than live in fear, pain, and the complete control of violent horrific people for months, let alone years or decades.
A bad sentence against innocent people is an unavoidable circumstance with no end in sight, you're confusing wrongfully found guilty and the method of punishment. A genuinely innocent person will simply not be the man who comes out of a decade in jail if they are found innocent, killing them or leaving them to be brutalised in jail, both are horrifically awful outcomes, neither is better or worse, either way you kill the man that goes into jail, one way the innocent man has some relative peace, the other way another man comes out of jail after years or decades of often horrific treatment a completely different person anyway.
I'd choose to die, innocent and wrongly accused the person I am than a beaten, tortured person 10-20 years later unable to live normally anyway. Get rid of the death penalty in the states, innocent people are just going to end up in gen pop being treated much worse and having their lives completely destroyed, just in a different, much more violent, much worse way. The problem is the legal system and its focus, usually politically motivated, causing one person commiting a crime to get one punishment one month and a different punishment 3 months later when the same crime isn't as "popular" in the media. Likewise prosecutions choose who to prosecute, if in the publics eye someone is SEEN as being guilty and the crime is particular in focus in the media, prosecutions are more likely to push for a conviction on bad evidence than at another time when they might think getting a conviction helps no one.
When people's jobs are based on the publics opinion, and therefore who gets prosecuted and why is subject to people getting elected and looking as tough on a changing scale you're in trouble. None of that has anything to do with the death penalty.
Fact is, it can't be done these days, a HUGE reason it costs so much is the people who often get on death row. Sure there are people who campaign hard and work to get people off death sentences, but there are lawyers(on every side) who get paid a crapload of money, and every extra appeal means more hours rehashing the same evidence again with the same outcome with very little real work being done, while getting paid out of a bottomless pit. You can end up with a poor guy, innocent or guilty, being prosecuted by one group of lawyers paid for by the government who get more money for every appeal, and another group of lawyers for the defence, also being paid for by the government, who get more money for every appeal.... We're talking about quite literally billions of dollars in lawyers fee's and no reason they should give up on innocent or clearly guilty people.
You could argue that the extortionate cost in California per person executed would merely drop drastically if they only executed more people
$308mil per person now, kill 10 times more people, that drops, kill 1000 people, its cheaper than a life sentence. I'm mostly joking there.... I think.Fact is in the overly litigious society, most death row guys spend years, even decades on death row with entire teams of lawyers both defence and prosecution fighting appeal after appeal and that is where all the big costs come from.
The simple costs are, slightly more expensive jail cell for 6 months vs a lifetime in a cheaper jail, its only the legal fee's that turn it into a joke cost wise.
Should we do it, yes, does it deter criminals, yes, a proper death setence, one where most people get off eventually isn't a deterant. if it was much more limited for cases where there are confessions, video, caught in the act only where there isn't any question.
CRAZY says thousands of innocent people have been executed, while saying only 138 were exonerated afterwards, and in this day and age, political agenda's rule more than the truth. If there is a particularly vocal group and no opposition group, what does the state have to lose by giving a pardon? Nothing, yes they can look good by pardoning someone if a group thinks he's innocent and no one thinks he's guilty. Some people are given pardons having done the crime but having been harshly dealt with or given an exceptional harsh sentence. MANY GUILTY people are pardoned if someone thinks they are worthy of it. Exonerated or pardoned does not automatically confirm without doubt they are innocent.
AS for thousands, we've killed 150k+ people in Iraq now, a crapload more in Afghanistan, of which a huge portion or completely and utterly innocent people, and this is just two of the illegal wars.
The government kills many many more people than the death penalty ever has in the US/UK combined at any stage its been illegal, usually by way of accident. The government/lawyers/judges will ALWAYS make mistakes, but they are trying to get rid of the worst members of society, nothing more or less. They aren't intentionally killing innocent people nor deciding that a higher innocent kill count than guilty is an acceptable loss for their goal, unlike the two wars we've been involved in where we've deemed innocents being killed a completely acceptable risk. America the "death penalty" country has still killed a very small portion of the criminal population largely out of fear of killing potentially innocent people. But as always, its shocking for a state to kill people it believes to be murderers/rapists, infact its uncivilised, but if we're killing innocent people in other countries without really giving a damn, that's ok.
Someone who commits a robbery and shoots and kills people, is seen as a murderer, someone who stands up during a robbery trying to defend himself or others and kills the criminal, is seen as killing in self defence and is in no trouble. Someone who walks in midway through and kills the guy trying to defend others by accident believing him to be the criminal, is also not guilty, he tried to do the right thing but accidentally did the wrong thing. Its all about intent, our entire law system is based on it. The death penalty is TRYING to do the right thing but sometimes getting it wrong, the intention is fine. Going to war in Iraq was flat out wrong(for the reasons given) and the lack of care over who gets killed is absolutely wrong, the sheer number of innocent people killed is shocking beyond reason, but its fine because its not "our" people.
Some of those cases CRAZY listed are simply **** cases to start with, but for me, if I had the choice of being beaten and raped in jail for 50 years on a bad case, or even a decade, I wouldn't be the same person coming out if I was randomly found innocent at a later date. I would PREFER to die somewhat peacefully than live in fear, pain, and the complete control of violent horrific people for months, let alone years or decades.
A bad sentence against innocent people is an unavoidable circumstance with no end in sight, you're confusing wrongfully found guilty and the method of punishment. A genuinely innocent person will simply not be the man who comes out of a decade in jail if they are found innocent, killing them or leaving them to be brutalised in jail, both are horrifically awful outcomes, neither is better or worse, either way you kill the man that goes into jail, one way the innocent man has some relative peace, the other way another man comes out of jail after years or decades of often horrific treatment a completely different person anyway.
I'd choose to die, innocent and wrongly accused the person I am than a beaten, tortured person 10-20 years later unable to live normally anyway. Get rid of the death penalty in the states, innocent people are just going to end up in gen pop being treated much worse and having their lives completely destroyed, just in a different, much more violent, much worse way. The problem is the legal system and its focus, usually politically motivated, causing one person commiting a crime to get one punishment one month and a different punishment 3 months later when the same crime isn't as "popular" in the media. Likewise prosecutions choose who to prosecute, if in the publics eye someone is SEEN as being guilty and the crime is particular in focus in the media, prosecutions are more likely to push for a conviction on bad evidence than at another time when they might think getting a conviction helps no one.
When people's jobs are based on the publics opinion, and therefore who gets prosecuted and why is subject to people getting elected and looking as tough on a changing scale you're in trouble. None of that has anything to do with the death penalty.
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