by Dan Merritt

Member since:
December 17, 2005

The Death Penalty

January 03, 2006 08:49 PM EST

views: 4 | rating: 6.5/10 (2 votes) | comments: 14

The second in a series of thigs I wrote some time back. Again offered for your perusal......

The Death Penalty - Why?
- It is cheaper!
- - Keeping a person prisoner costs tens of thousands per year. It is not practical to make a prisoner 'pay his own way' under forced labour conditions so, there is simply no way to keep prisoners from costing tax payer dollars even for short term incarceration. An 'until you die' sentence means that each prisoner will cost a good family income each year for as much as fifty or sixty years. This cost, entirely for the benefit of a person who is not fit to live among us, by his or her own choice, is a ridiculous waste of money better spent elsewhere.
- It is permanent!
- - There are people who will never be safe to let out among the normal population. It is impossible to tell exactly who these are with certainty. In order to protect society from the escape or ill-informed release of dangerous people it is best, in extreme cases to destroy them.
- It is a deterrent!
- - Many criminals believe that if they get caught, they can 'do the time.' After all the life inside the prison is not all that bad and so if all else fails the worst they need to look forward to is a number of years of restricted ease. They will at least be fed, housed, treated for ailments and entertained in a limited way. And no matter how long their sentence may be they will eventually be released. However; if the penalty for the crime was 'DEATH' they (or at least some) would not do the crime. Criminals are not generally suicidal!
- An 'eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' is a basic principle of Justice.
- - If someone takes a life (or many lives) in a calculated, cold blooded way, they deserve to die. They have given up their right to live.
The Death Penalty - Why not?
- It is irreversible!
- - Our justice system is not perfect. Here in Canada we have committed several innocent people to life imprisonment for what would be, in most countries, 'capital' crimes. In all likelihood, we have made that mistake with many more than the three or four we admit to in the last 30 years. If we had the death penalty for premeditated murder and actually used it we would have executed, at the very least, three innocent men in the last twenty years alone. The risk is simply not worth it!
- It makes 'cold blooded killers' out of government employees!
- - There is no wage or salary that can justify asking normal people to take someone, whom they may even like personally, and who certainly has not done them personally any harm, and strap them down in a chair or on a gurney and then too deliberately and in some slow and grotesque fashion, kill them, watching them twitch, and blubber, and plead until their breathing and heart beat stop.
- It makes no allowance for 'rehabilitation'!
- - Just because a person was, at one point in their life, capable of cold-bloodedly taking another human for 'fun or profit' does not mean that they cannot be changed with treatment and changed life experience. Human beings are extremely malleable and if the right combination of treatment/education/training can be found most if not all could be fully rehabilitated to useful and valuable membership in human society. While we are not very expert at this at present, we certainly know more that we did fifty years ago and will learn more in the future. The death penalty ends the opportunities represented by the rehabilitated criminal.
- Mercy is a basic principle of Justice!
- - Justice is properly tempered with mercy. Heaven forbid that we all get what we deserve. Mercy benefits the merciful more than the recipient of mercy. "Let him who has no sin cast the first stone" is the true message for civilized human behaviour.

Tags: death penalty, religion, crime, socitey, prisons, politics, global politics, education

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Comments: 14

Tyler W. Jan 3, 2006, 11:22pm EST

It actually costs more to kill someone than keep them in for life. The costs are lawyers fees, court costs, etc... for the appeals AND the cost of them being incarcerated. It has also been shown to not be a deterrent, since crime rates aren't any lower in states that are pro-death. However, there is other reasons to support it. My reason is that we have laws that we abide by in order to maintain our protection by the state and each other, if someone breaks those laws and takes a life that isn't theres to take they should be forefeiting their rights to protection by the very laws they felt it unnecessary to follow. Then they are suspect to die, it then rests on the people in charge to do it if they want to. The biggest problem is the innocent and mentally handicapped that are being executed. We need to fix the system first and foremost regardless of your stance on this issue.

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Professor Booty Jan 4, 2006, 12:11am EST

It's not cheaper, as Tyler pointed out, to kill a prisoner than to keep them in jail for life. And again, as pointed out by Tyler, it's not been proven to be a deterrent.

As far as Tyler's reason to support the death penalty, he has totally lost me. His reason is as weak as the eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth theory. Based on his rasoning, if someone steals something from me, let's say a ring, I should be able to steal one of their rings, that's it.

There are far better reasons to support the death penalty, but I won't list them because I don't want to help anyone out in their quest for justifying state killing.

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Dan Merritt Jan 4, 2006, 9:04am EST

Interesting that the comments have mostly been about the cost. I find it hard to believe that keeping someone in prison for 50 years is cheaper than electrocuting them after 10, but I may be wrong of course. The thing that I do not understand is why we, almost without fail, spend years trying to get the death sentence set aside for each individual sentenced person when we could have just avoided the problem by not allowing it in the first place. Makes me think lawyers are probably the biggest beneficiary of the death penalty.

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Professor Booty Jan 4, 2006, 11:52pm EST

Well Dan, in a sense you answered your own question. From my understading, the costs associated with keeping someone on death row has to do with the appeals process. That money doesn't come out of thin air. Thus, it is far more expensive to kill a prisoner than keep them there for life.

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Tyler W. Jan 5, 2006, 1:55am EST

The law as it stands states that if I stole a "ring" from you I lose my life outside a jail cell for awhile (eye for a ring), and is not much different than what I propose. I am not calling for mass killing of thieves. If you take an unconsenting humans life (they can never regain) then you are not fit to live in a society that has these protections (which is no different than life in prison) Hence, they can die without too much remorse on my part.

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Professor Booty Jan 5, 2006, 2:47am EST

Do you believe that everyone on death row is guilty of the crimes for which they are accused? If, after reading the stories of those that have been wrongly accused (some of them put to death even), you still believe that the risk of killing a human being outweighs life sentences I don't know what to tell you.

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Dan Merritt Jan 5, 2006, 2:36pm EST

My next-door neighbor says he would kill anybody his boss told him to. He respects his boss and believes that his boss knows who should die and who should be allowed to live. I expect I should consider moving.

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Tyler W. Jan 6, 2006, 4:29pm EST

"Professor" Booty, I also stated that the system needs fixing no matter what side you are on on this debate. No I don't think that, thats why we should fix the system first. Also, you assuming I am adamantly for death. I just think it is ok with me if it stands as a law. If the people against it fight for it, I will not care if it goes away, but regardless there is a justification in my mind that works for it.

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Brian M. Jan 8, 2006, 12:26am EST

Killing people is wrong whether by individuals or by the government in the name of the people. It makes 'cold blooded killers' out of all of us as the government is killing to enforce our collective will.

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Professor Booty Jan 8, 2006, 12:52am EST

"Tyler" W. I never once said that you were adamantly for or against anything. Re-read and get back to me.

Tootles.

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Tyler W. Jan 8, 2006, 7:12pm EST

If that is not the case "professor" (I am actually a Tyler) then why worry about telling me about the innocent people on death row? You are clearly assuming I want to kill them (in the process of killing the guilty I suppose), and what would that mean about my stance? If that was supposed to pull my heart strings then It would rest on the fact that I am so interested in killing people that I would over look that point, which I didn't in the first place, you just misread me. So, no you didn't literally say that, but it is infered by your statement.
Brian, I think you don't understand what a 'cold blooded killer' is? That would exlude any justification. No remorse at all for life. But killing to protect the masses has its good points. Maybe if you are about to be shot I should let it happen, cause I don't want to be a 'cold blooded killer'?

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Dan Merritt Jan 8, 2006, 8:39pm EST

Brian, I would not go so far as to say "Killing people is wrong whether by individuals or by the government in the name of the people." I certainly consider killing in self defense justifiable. Soldiers killing in a war is certainly justifiable at least if the war is. However, I would class death penalty killings as about as cold blooded as it is possible to get. Which is the main reason I am completely against the death penalty.

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Professor Booty Jan 10, 2006, 3:04am EST

"Tyler" (you are assuming I'm not a Professor and as such i do not preusme that your parents actually named you Tyler. Fair?) I don't really understand your last comment. It makes no sense to me, but I will try..

You said " I just think it is ok with me if it stands as a law." To me, that says that you are ok with the death penalty no matter of guilt or innocence so long as that's the law. If I'm wrong, please correct me by making yourself more clear. Otherwise, I will take your statement at face value.

Your response: "You are clearly assuming I want to kill them (in the process of killing the guilty I suppose), and what would that mean about my stance? If that was supposed to pull my heart strings then It would rest on the fact that I am so interested in killing people that I would over look that point, which I didn't in the first place, you just misread me. "

Honestly, I can't for the life of me figure out what you are saying. Are you saying that killing innocent people is the fallout of killing the guilty? And you tell me, what does that mean about your stance. Pulling at your heartstrings....of forget it, I give up. If you can articulate your stance clearly and cogently it will give me the opportunity to support or reject it. Until then, I'll chalk it up to a misunderstanding.

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Tyler W. Jan 11, 2006, 12:38am EST

Let's first look at the first quote of mine you misread - " I just think it is ok with me if it stands as a law." - Meaning, that if it is a law (and we fix the system of its problems with the innocent) I am ok with it. I am not going to cry about guilty people being killed.
Second - "You are clearly assuming I want to kill them (in the process of killing the guilty I suppose), and what would that mean about my stance? If that was supposed to pull my heart strings then It would rest on the fact that I am so interested in killing people that I would over look that point, which I didn't in the first place, you just misread me. " - Meaning, your post was a rebuttal of my previous post about being "ok" with the death penalty. If this is a rebuttal that is trying to convert me in any way (which can be assumed based on the nature of a comment driven site like this) then you are making the claim that I am wrong in some way. For you to make that claim with your statement about the innocent people you would have to have misread me first, then hoped you would catch me in a bind about innocent people being killed. You follow so far? If you are catching me, you are relying on the fact that I (1) either hadn't thought of that, which is false, or (2) you would tug on my heart strings and make me feel guilty for the innocent victims in all this. Which rests on me being for, no matter what, the death penalty, which is also false. You get it yet prof.? I think you are throwing your words into my sentances and that is confusing you. I didn't say half the things you have claimed I did so far.

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