Capital Punishment -

[autisticdragonkin]

Capital punishment also known as the death penalty is an issue which has been very significant in the USA for the past few decades. Most countries in the world have abolished it or do not have executions despite it being officially still present.

The arguments about capital punishment are diverse with some arguing that it is too humane and others arguing that it is too cruel and others focusing on the fact that in the USA it is extremely expensive due to the excessive appeals and other arguments that it is cheaper

Personally I am in favour of capital punishment because I think that it allows for more effective deterrence and cost reduction as well as eliminating the possibility of escape.I think that the american system is just based around getting out anger and due to the presence of too many appeals makes the death penalty too costly and thus the american government should either abolish it or liberally apply it to everyone who would get a life sentence and performing the execution within a day of the end of the trial

I do not support public execution nor do I support impractically painful forms of execution as I think that execution should be entirely based on practical deterrence and cost reduction but it might be wise to make the execution method vivid enough in order to exploit the availability bias.

I think that wrongful execution is just simply less of an issue that many people think as long as it is seen as a punishment for a life of crime rather than for an individual crime as well as an incapacitory measure

 

[AnOminous]

There's no conclusive evidence whatsoever that it has any deterrent effect, and may in fact devalue life by encouraging the use of revenge killing as an acceptable thing.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

There's no conclusive evidence whatsoever that it has any deterrent effect, and may in fact devalue life by encouraging the use of revenge killing as an acceptable thing.

Can you provide links about it not being deterrent

I am mostly supportive of it for the purposes of cost reduction though

EDIT: also what would count as it being deterrent for these studies

 

[sikotik]

Can you provide links about it not being deterrent

People still commit murder where the death penalty is still available.

 

[Sperglord Dante]

I like it on principle, but it unfortunately doesn't work in reality because of the appeal system. Or so I've heard. One thing nobody's been able to explain to me is exactly how can a deathrow inmate appeal considerably more in the ten or so years he's going to be behind the bars than a prisoner condemned to 20-50 years? Doesn't that mean the system is ultimately unfair to lifers?

 

[Joan Nyan]

It's not used enough.

 

[Hat]

The death penalty is older than the Bible and is specifically established by God Himself as a punishment for murder. There does not need to be a "deterrent effect" at all; some people simply deserve to die and it is the duty of the state to dole out such punishment in public.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

I think that the deterrence argument is overrated and we really should do executions in order to save the cost of feeding the prisoners as well as prevent them from committing further crimes. Those two things are enough to warrant it even if it has no deterrent effect but it needs to be done without appeals preferably within 24 hours of the guilty verdict being passed and should not be given to first time offenders

 

[Jubileus]

At the risk of seeming shallow, I'll preface with this because I can't resist and I think it's probably true: ITT we have a few people who apparently have never known/met/dealt with prosecutors, detectives, or judges.

Disclaimer: obvious U.S. criminal justice system lens view here.

In a world where detectives stuck to the acquisition of data about a case, prosecutors stuck to the exercise of seeking justice rather than acquiring bottle caps/belt notches, judges weren't just promoted from the pool of prosecutors, and juries were actually reasonably intelligent, informed, and versed in the law, I would still have misgivings about the death penalty because mistakes happen. You can pull a guy out of a cell and pay some manner of reparations even you are not able to give him his life back entirely; so far as I know, you can't reliably resuscitate somebody from a lethal injection, electrocution, beheading or what have you.

We don't even life in that fairy castle, though. Detectives alternate between laziness and zeal and forensic "science" is still at least 50% quackery when you don't have the technicians screwing with the results because of lazy corner-cutting, lack of adequate funding, or even occasionally out-and-out malicious intent. Prosecutors are concerned with promotion ladders and many times with future political advancement, and so to them "winning" is awfully important when they ought to be concerned with ensuring the right person is held accountable for crimes (and fun fact to add murkiness: it's not at all uncommon for police and prosecutors to be so entwined that they share a single union between them, even in large municipalities). Judges largely are the endgame position for a lot of these prosecutors and tend to have a great deal of sympathy toward them because of this, overlooking mistakes of process that are supposed to be our safeguards and often making whole new ones themselves because of biases from years of being on that side of the bench. And juries are largely pulled from the population that's generally not bright enough to figure out a way out of jury duty let alone the intricacies of a legal system.

And you want these folks to be able to levy a penalty with such finality and irrevocability as death?

I'm not against the idea of execution as a criminal penalty itself because of some sort of humanitarian concern of needing the perfect painless execution method or whatever. I'm against it being used by the "criminal justice" complex as we know it, because they don't wield their powers responsibly even when it isn't a matter of death as it is. With reversible/reparable penalties there's at least a possibility for making right what does go wrong.

 

[TowinKarz]

I'm not morally opposed to it, as long as it is the sentence of a proper standing court that gave the defendant his/her Due Process before imposing it.

I really do think that if you commit a crime heinous enough, there's no reason we shouldn't , proverbially, take you out back and put you down like a rabid animal.

But, practically, I find it a relic that's outlived any usefulness it may have had. I wouldn't be surprised to see it end within my lifetime, the immense cost and political nastiness the issue has become wrapped up in hopefully will be judged not worth it. Really, it's only used as a political bone, a way for elected officials to show how they're tough on crime by supporting it or calling for it. And there have been enough innocent people on death row exonerated in the past decades by new forensics for me to wonder if it SHOULD be an option because, as above state, it's the only penalty you can't take back if you get it wrong.

We have nominally one of the fairest justice systems in the world, but, it is NOT perfect, and I'm really not comfortable with that imperfection when the DP is an option.

Some people forget, as Justice Robert Jackson once said, courts are infallible because they're final, not final because they're infallible.

 

[Joan Nyan]

On a related note, police should use lethal force more often as well. If police used lethal force against anyone they witnessed committing a violent crime, so much money would be saved on trials and prisons, and so many innocent people would be protected from violence because a dead person can't be a repeat offender.

should not be given to first time offenders

Why wait until they've killed a second person? Executing first time offenders would protect more innocent people.

 

[女鬼]

I'm not in favour of the death penalty because it's irreversible. As long as justice isn't infaillible, it's not a good thing because the risk of executing an innocent person is unacceptable. If there's a judicial error, you can always release someone from prison or compensate them finiancially, but you can't un-kill someone who's dead.

 

[QI 541]

Anyone who's actually seen the courts in action wouldn't have enough confidence in them to give them the power to decide whether someone should live or die.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

Why wait until they've killed a second person? Executing first time offenders would protect more innocent people.

I mean that someone should have commited at least 2 felonies (or commited one as a juvenile) to be executed. They don't both have to be murder but I think that even murder is not a justification for death penalty, only lifestyle criminality is so a trial would not even be about whether the person commited the crime but about whether the person deserves to live

 

[*Asterisk*]

There's no conclusive evidence whatsoever that it has any deterrent effect, and may in fact devalue life by encouraging the use of revenge killing as an acceptable thing.

It's pretty self-evident this isn't the case. The highest murder rates in the world, by far, occur in countries without capital punishment, and without life sentences. Fucking Iran alone has as large a volume of contraband drugs going through it as Colombia, Venezuela, or Mexico. They have failed states on their East and West borders, and for the entire 21st century, they've had about the same murder rate as we here in the US.

This isn't the ultimate statement on the matter. Just because something's an effective method doesn't mean it should be carried out if the act itself is too repulsive. We'd never have graffiti problems or corner drug dealers in this country again if we caned anyone caught doing it on sight while every now and then lopping a dealer's head off in a town square, but I don't want to ever see the US become a "guilty, regardless of your innocence" country any more than we've already wound up.

I still support the death penalty. There are too many people in the world who're too rotten to warrant tolerating their existence. Especially real estate moguls with hideous choices in hairstyles.

 

[AnOminous]

I mean that someone should have commited at least 2 felonies (or commited one as a juvenile) to be executed. They don't both have to be murder but I think that even murder is not a justification for death penalty, only lifestyle criminality is so a trial would not even be about whether the person commited the crime but about whether the person deserves to live

Anyone who has committed murder has committed at least one other felony on the way there. Any prosecutor with a pulse could manage to bring more than one felony in any murder case.

 

[Really makes you thunk]

I think the death penalty is good, but ONLY for the most depraved, morally-reprehensible and irredeemable criminals- with charges that would rack up to many lifetime sentences. And ONLY if it's completely conclusive that they were the ones behind it.

Mass war-criminals, genocidal dictators, serial torturers, people who curl in the Squat-rack, those kind kind of people, y'know?

 

[ScrewTheRules]

At the risk of isolating myself from my fellow left-wingers, I am actually pro-capitol punishment, at least under certain circumstances. Specifically, only in the case of serious, violent crimes (i.e. murder) and only repeat offenders, and by repeat offenders I mean people who've been to prison previously. I believe in second chances, but I do not believe in third, fourth and fifth chances, and if prison didn't rehabilitate somebody the first time round it certainly won't the second time. I do also think there needs to be no reasonable doubt and indisputable evidence (by indisputable I man something like DNA, or CCTV footage), and there should be a time period during which an appeal can be launched, and the methods used for execution should, ideally, be humane.

I am horrified that there are people calling for more lethal force from the police given America's current problem with police brutality. NOBODY should be executed without due process, and lethal force should only be used on somebody who is armed and poses a threat to others, and only when an attempt has been made to deescalate the situation non-violently. Innocent people are currently being kill by police officers in the United State - whether you consider the victims good people or not is irrelevant, they were still innocent - and you think more police brutality will some stop innocent people being hurt?

 

[autisticdragonkin]

At the risk of isolating myself from my fellow left-wingers, I am actually pro-capitol punishment, at least under certain circumstances. Specifically, only in the case of serious, violent crimes (i.e. murder) and only repeat offenders, and by repeat offenders I mean people who've been to prison previously. I believe in second chances, but I do not believe in third, fourth and fifth chances, and if prison didn't rehabilitate somebody the first time round it certainly won't the second time. I do also think there needs to be no reasonable doubt and indisputable evidence (by indisputable I man something like DNA, or CCTV footage), and there should be a time period during which an appeal can be launched, and the methods used for execution should, ideally, be humane.

I am horrified that there are people calling for more lethal force from the police given America's current problem with police brutality. NOBODY should be executed without due process, and lethal force should only be used on somebody who is armed and poses a threat to others, and only when an attempt has been made to deescalate the situation non-violently. Innocent people are currently being kill by police officers in the United State - whether you consider the victims good people or not is irrelevant, they were still innocent - and you think more police brutality will some stop innocent people being hurt?

We also need the prisons to focus on rehabilitation and deterrence. They cannot be purely rehabilitative such that people will be completely indifferent to them, a rational person should consider not commiting a crime to be more valuable then commiting a crime to go to prison but once someone gets out of prison they should be able to reintegrate into society and be less likely to commit crimes. I think that repeat offenders are a failure of the criminal justice system but still should be euthanized for the safety of others (they don't deserve it but others are better off with it so they are not executed per se). I only support actual capital punishment in the rare case where someone gains so much from comitting a crime that its worth is equivalent to the worth of the rest of their life or more and I cannot think of a modern example of such a crime

 

[ScrewTheRules]

We also need the prisons to focus on rehabilitation and deterrence. They cannot be purely rehabilitative such that people will be completely indifferent to them, a rational person should consider not commiting a crime to be more valuable then commiting a crime to go to prison but once someone gets out of prison they should be able to reintegrate into society and be less likely to commit crimes.

I'm not going to disagree with you.

I think that repeat offenders are a failure of the criminal justice system but still should be euthanized for the safety of others (they don't deserve it but others are better off with it so they are not executed per se).

Call a spade a spade a spade; that's not euthanasia, it's execution.

. I only support actual capital punishment in the rare case where someone gains so much from comitting a crime that its worth is equivalent to the worth of the rest of their life or more and I cannot think of a modern example of such a crime

There was an arms dealer taken down recently in Birmingham, can't remember the name. Honestly a lot more people turn a profit on crime than you'd realise, it's just most of them a pretty damn careful not to get caught; the fame isn't worth life in prison.