About Capital Punishment

I agree with capital punishment... especially for repeat sex offenders or people who hurt children. The chair would be too good for them in my opinion.

I agree strongly with capital punishment, I also believe that DNA evidence must be 100%, or all evidence must also be 100%, I believe that should we bring back the death penality that it would deter crime, but when criminals have more rights than the average citizen this only incourages crime, so why are the law makers allowing this. This is the way it is in Canada.
Philly

I can think of some more creative punishments for repeated sex offenders. As for people who hurt children, I don't think an easy death goes far enough.

I agree with it also,But I know that some innocent people have been put to death. That upsets me. You should write about those creative punishments. I am sure we all have some.

Philip, I agree that the DNA evidence would have to be absolutely conclusive. It's scary to think of innocent people being imprisoned or executed.

This is one question I am not 100% sure of. I lean toward capitol punishment.

Hi William. Sometimes I lean that way and sometimes I don't. It didn't bother me at all when they executed Ted Bundy. But then I was sure he was guilty.

Here's my thoughts:

There is no logical reason to have a death penalty at all anymore. Every argument that hasn't been disproven, are logical fallacies, mostly fallacies of tradition (we have always had capital punishment in the past and its in the constitution) or fallacies of emotion (they deserve to die for their crimes).

Is it a deterrent? Nope. The US is the only country in the Western Hemisphere with a death penalty, and our crime and murder rate is just as bad as countries without the death penalty.

Is it cost effective? Nope. Numerous reports have been released saying the cost of court time for automatic death penalty appeals outweighs the cost of incarceration for life.

Is it for Justice? Nope. If it were just, how come African Americans, who make up 10% of the population, make up half the population on death row? How come males are far more likely to get the death penalty than women for the same crime? And over 90 people put on death row in the last 25 years were later exonerated, a possibility more likely since if you are innocent, you are not likely to accept a plea bargain to a lesser offense.

Is it moral? The Pope doesn't think so, nor do most liberal protestant churches, nor do most secular humanist organizations, nor does any western nation outside of the US. The second largest country outside the US with a death penalty is Iran.

Whats more horrible of a death then sitting in a jail cell alone for 20 to 50 years waiting to die?

I believe in captial punishment. I think it is justice. However, the "does it work" question is tricky. I think it WOULD be a good deterrent if it were used more often. I think far too many murderers manage to weasel out of it. If people really had to worry and be scared of the death penalty, I think they would be far less likely to kill others. But when they figure that the chances of even going to jail are so small, much less getting the death penalty, then they're not very afraid.

Ariane, I am with you. I don't believe in it. Though I am sure some people deserve it, the thought of even one innocent person being put to death for crimes they didn't commit is just plain wrong.
If someone hurt my kid, I'd be satisfied knowing if they were serving consecutive life sentences.
However I wouldn't want to be responsible for putting to death even 1 innocent man, which has happened.
How anyone can say they are a believer in God and support the death penalty is beyond me. Maybe they haven't read all of the 10 commandments....

I have to say that if someone hurt my kid I would actually want to be the pne to put them to death with my own two hands. But I know that I'd never get the chance, because my husband would beat me to it.
I don't actually think capital punishment works as a deterrent. I doesn't stop crime. People who commit crimes don't think they'll get caught, do they?
But maybe, just sometimes, it would get us rid of a few people who take more lives.
I know that there are cases of people being wrongly put on death row. I know that African Americans are taking up all the death row space, and that it costs an arm and a leg.
But I'm not sure this means we should get rid of it.
Instead, I think we should look at the reasons that most African Americans turn to crime, or end up in that social environment that leads to prison. Why treat the symptom? Start at the sickness.

I've thought many of the same things that have been mentioned here. That's why I have so many mixed emotions on this issue

I think criminals who prey on innocent victims should get the death penalty and swiftly too. I used to be against the death penalty but not anymore as crimes get worse and worse. Unfortunately, our state doesn't have the death penalty.

The fact is that it is not meant to be a deterrent. It is meant to prevent someone being released and doing the same thing. The stats have shown that the rate of recidivism for child molesters and child murderers hovers between 80 and 85 per cent. Social programs, rehab, whatever, does not change anything. Remember that the fellow who raped and strangled the little girl in Florida then buried her alive? Or the one who raped the little girl and duct taped her mouth and nose so he could savor her slow suffocation? Remember that they were both repeat offenders? so... where is the conflict here?
Understand that I am essentially, philosophically, pacifistic; I carry rattlesnakes out of my yard so that I will not have to kill them, and so they will not strike any of my animals. But in warfare or in the dispensation of justice, involving humans who use their free will to harm or kill weaker ones, I have no hand-wringing Donahue style inner angst conflicts. I have seen the bodies of young girls after the perverts finished mutilating them, first hand. I have seen the cold blue bodies of little girls who were bled to death crying for the Mommies, who will never see their sixth birthday. I do not support coddling people who have taken the lives of weaker persons, and supporting them as they grow old whilst their victims molder away in the ground, and the victim's families suffer for a lifetime.
Of course, if anyone could show me that the murderers and serial rapists had first given their victims their Miranda rights, allowed them a nice place to stay and legal representation and an appeal process before raping and disembowelling them or penetrating their organs with sharp objects, well, maybe I will change my thinking! I haven't seen it happen yet.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. I definately have mine. Death penalty - yes. Abortion - no. And for that matter, people who insist on drinking and driving (multiple offenses) and end up killing people, perhaps they should get life in prison.

Julian, you paint a graphic word picture that makes me sure I believe in the death penalty but I still struggle with it.

On the other hand, I thoroughly agree with the recidivism issue. A life sentence should be just what it says - life
Solitary confinement, no tv, and no other coddling.

And I agree with Sandra about drinking and driving. Any injury or death caused by a drunk driver is a purposeful act and should be punished as an intentional crime.

It's a tough question. When I see some scum bag who has confessed and it is proven he is indeed guilty and there is no doubt of his guilt, fry him. Seriously. The lethal injection thing is something terminally ill people would love to have available to them so they can die peacefully. If you're going to take a life, don't sanitize it. I find lethal injections to be more creepy than the electric chair or hanging because quite frankly, taking someone's life shouldn't be sanitized. You are KILLING a human being. If you really think they deserve death than really kill them. Don't make yourself feel better about it because their death happened quietly.

On the other hand, I find it reprehensible that innocent people might be meeting their death due to poor representation. There are too many ways an innocent man or woman could find themselves on death row. That would not be justice. It would be government sanctified murder. I don't want any part of that.

If I were a Christian, I probably would be against it 100 percent since I would really follow the teachings of Christ if I did call myself a Christian and leave the final punishment to God. If you can find me some passage in the New Testament that shows me that Jesus thought stoning someone to death or killing someone - guilty or innocent - was a good idea, then maybe I'll reconsider this point.

I am a Christian. I believe in corporal punishment. Maybe the two don't go together, but I will bet you I am not the only one, Marsha. I agree that the person should be PROVEN guilty using all the technology available to us. If there is any doubt, then don't do it. Psychopaths will never be stopped any other way.
I would like to know though, why is it that a life sentence does not mean for the rest of their life? I have always thought that was ridiculous. If you don't mean life, don't call it a life sentence. Call it a 'til we think you learned your lesson sentence.

I oppose the death penalty. Following are MY reasons:

First, stiff sentences and the death penalty don't deter crime. As someone who works with that segment of society, criminals don't think before they act. Or if they do, they believe that they will not be caught. If stiffer sentences deterred crime, then Texas would have a lower murder rate than states that don't have the death penalty. That doesn't hold true. You can compare state crime rates at http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/ . There, you'll see that in the year 2000 (the last year numbers are listed on that particular site) Texas had 5.9 murders per 100,000 people compared to a state like Minnesota (which doesn't have the death penalty) where the murder rate was 3.1 per 100,000 people.

Second, please recall Governor Ryan of Illinois. In 2003, he commuted the sentences of all death row inmates after receiving evidence that 13 inmates on death row were wrongly convicted. Those 13 inmates were fortunate enough to have evidence that could exonerate them. There was concrete evidence that proved they didn't commit the crime and their lives were saved.

But what about those who were convicted where DNA or other forensic information doesn't exist? Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable - as an example, consider this story from CBS in the midst of the serial sniper investigation: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/21/eveningnews/main526391.shtml . And the mistakes made by eyewitnesses increase when there are other factors, like a difference in race between the suspect and the eyewitness or catching a glimpse of the suspect prior to a line-up and then "remembering" him as the perpetrator. Please consider the work of Elizabeth Loftus, a world renowned expert on this topic. Her biography and bibliography can be found at: http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/.

Third, I don't believe the death penalty is fairly applied. Race is a factor. In Texas, the death row population between 1974 and 2004 was 40% black, 31% white and 28% Latino. In 2002, the Texas population was 12% black, 52% white and 32% Latino. The death penalty is also disproportionally applied to low-income defendants due to many factors, including the inability to hire expert witnesses to review forensic evidence or to employ investigators to talk to witnesses. Long and short - the death penalty isn't fairly applied.

Many of us don't think that we'll ever be in the position to defend ourselves against a serious crime. But the power of the police and the prosecutors is incredible. I represent a woman whose husband has been charged with some very serious crimes. My client lost her job as a nurse because the police contacted her employer and lied about seeing medical records in her home during the execution of a search warrant against her husband. And when she showed the police and her employer that the boxes didn't contain medical records? She still lost her job and the police just shrugged, as if to say "oops". I have other clients whose children have been taken away for abuse concerns when there are documented medical reasons for the children's "injuries". Just today I had a client (an average, law-abiding citizen who's never before been in trouble in his 26 years of life and who strongly maintains his innocence and against whom there is essentially no evidence) say that he almost admitted the accusations being made just to get the police to lay off him and his wife.

Finally, if murder is wrong, then it's wrong. Whether the killing is committed by an individual on their own or on behalf of the "State", it's still killing. I do not give my government the right to kill ANYONE in my name.

this is a very explosive subject, I live in Canada, and we don't have capital punishment, and it helps when somebody was convicted and later proven innocent those it does not bring back the wasted years in prison. I am personally not in favour of taking a person's life, I am not god, I don't think a government is either.

Capital punishment is not a deterrent; it is not cost-effective. It is not fairly applied. If you are rich and white you are much less likely to receive the death sentence. If you are non-white, non-English speaking, or retarded, you have a much greater chance of receiving a death sentence. That alone tells you something.

And the debate continues with excellent points on both sides. No easy answers.

Here is a question,if someone you loved was raped,murdered, and thrown away like garbage, what punishment would fit their crimes?

Without going into the whole story I will just say briefly that I was a victim of a violent crime committed by someone already on probation. This was a multiple victim incident and not knowing how the other family feels for me the sentence this person got was not nearly enough. The minute he was back out on the streets he was into his old habits despite all the therapy (and free education) he got while in prison. I got a life sentence of physical and emotional problems from the incident while he did 3-1/2 yrs of a 5 to 10 yr compound sentence.

Would I (or my family) support the death penalty, YOU BET WE WOULD. I am tired of living on the edge of poverty while paying taxes to support things like prisons. There is no guarantee that someone sentenced to life will actually stay put in a prison. Certainly a person killing another person outside of a military/police action warrants the death penalty. I think drunk drivers who are now getting a slap on the wrist should be sentenced for life. I think that enablers (such as the person that provides a drunk driver with no license a vehicle) of a crime should also be charged and punished.

Does it benefit the victim and/or their family? I can't speak for all cases but in our case even my grandson who was 4 yrs old at the time of our incident remembers and was affected by the terror of that morning and that was 14 yrs ago.

Good, thoughtful approach to raising the issue.

Capital punishment is a difficult dilemma.

The concept of ensuring that the criminal is proven guilty beyond all doubt before applying capital punishment is a red herring. TV has led us to believe in this massive scientific effort to solve every crime, but it just isn't true. Very few police departments have all the resources shown on television, and it is the rare cop who is as dedicated and competent as those shown in CSI and shows like that (not a criticism of cops, it is the rare human who is that super competent). The law says beyond a reasonable doubt because that is all we are capable of. Crimes happen in secret, that is their nature. Using detective procedures and forensic science is an attempt to recreate the crime in order to identify the perpetrator, but it can never be an exact science because of the efforts to hide the truth by the guilty and the unwitting actions of many others (both human, animal, microbal, insects etc.) that pollute the crime scene and distort or destroy evidence. Here in Canada, where there is no death penalty, at least four famous cases in the past decade have come to light of men who served years in prison for crimes they did not commit. Yet the system was sure of their guilt. In one case, despite exoneration through DNA evidence and release from prison, the original investigative detective has still publicly expressed his belief in the man's guilt.

Police also get emotionally involved in their cases, they would not be human otherwise. When you investigate the rape-murder of a child, become intimate with the grisly detials of the crime committed against her, get to know her parents at a time when they are suffering the worst that a human can ever face and looking to you to alleviate some of that suffering by bringing the guilty to justice, you can not help but get emotionally involved. In such a state, when a person begins to look guilty to you, they take on a sinister aspect that means they deserve your hatred. That can have an impact on your work. It can lead to shortcuts and breeches in protocol and procedure in order to "get the guy" that actually return worse results: convicting an innocent and letting an unidentified guilty party go free.

Those who complain about the legal process involved in capital cases (the many appeals, the years of wrangling) often characterize it as coddling criminals and giving them rights they never gave their victims. "julian three" above mentions this exact thing, musing about killers giving Miranda rights to their victims. The point of these rights is not to give criminals rights, but to give suspects rights. A suspect is not a criminal. They must be presumed innocent. This is about giving all of us rights. If we do not have a legal system that holds the presumption of innocence above all else, then many innocents will be punished which will not serve the interests of justice at all. Remember, when you punish an innocent there are two crucial mistakes being made: a life is ruined for no good reason and a guilty person walks free. The victim is not avenged, their killer is free.

Yet this is often the result of emotion based approaches to crime and punishment. The law must be as dispassionate as possible.

As the death penalty is a final punishment, the bar must be set very high to try and prevent erroneous application of it, though that will likely still occur.

Mostly I am opposed to the death penalty, for that reason, and I'm glad that my country does not impose it. I think that the violence inherent in state imposed killings filters through society and results in more violence over all, not less. "Philly" above states that he believes that the death penalty should be imposed "when the evidence is 100%" and bemoans criminals having more rights than others. What is wrong with this is that: a) the evidence is never 100%; b) criminals have no additional rights it is just that the rights of all citizens come into play in any criminal trial, and many of those rights are never exercised at any other time in your life. If we don't allow all those rights to accused persons then none of us get them. This means you become guilty by accusation. The crime rate in Canada, particularly the violent crime rate, is a fraction of that in the United States where the death penalty does exist (I'm talking on a per capita basis).

Having said all that, I will throw in one qualifier: in the case of those who commit serial killings, especially of sexual nature, it seems clear that there is no way of "curing" them of their condition, no possibility of rehabilitation. We cannot ever let them walk free in society without endangering innocent people. Life in an 6x10 cell is not necessarily better than a quick, merciful death. I 'm not sure what is the right thing to do with folks like that.

Part of the conundrum is this, though: we all hate the actions of child rapists and sexual murderers, yet most of them appear to have been victims of sexual interference in their own childhood. At what point in their lives to they go from deserving our heartfelt sympathy for what they suffered to deserving our violent antipathy for what they've become? The easy answer is when they commit violent acts of sexual interference against other innocents. But along the path between being victim and being perpetrator haven't we failed them enormously by not helping them find a different path?

Rory
Thanks for your comments and especially your analysis of how real life law enforcement work differs from the cases presented on TV - something else to think about.

This is a hard one to answer. I think it all depends on what they did and proof that they did it

The primary purpose for having capital punishment is to express the sanctity of human life. It deters some, but not all capital crime. It has a retributive value: that person will commit no more crimes. The sanctity of life position goes: You violated the social compact by taking innocent human life so your life is forfeit. To allow such a person to live out their life incarcerated says their life is more valuable than their victim's life. The Pope may deplore CP but the Church takes no dogmatic position on it. There are pious Catholics on both sides. Tim Kaine, Gov. of Virginia, did some capital defense pro bono work earlier in his life. He commuted one death sentence and refused to commute another. I have donated to attorneys defending indigent capital defendants and am almost good enough (law librarian, paralegal) to help defend others. They deserve the full range of their rights protected. They also deserve to face the music for what they have done.

William.
Thanks for adding your input to this complicated discussion. I agree with your last statement "they deserve to face the music . . ." I'm just not sure what the music should be. Also, I would be a lot more comfortable with capital punishment if the standard of proof was "beyond a shadow of a doubt" rather than "beyond a reasonable doubt". The thought of executing an innocent person is a powerful argument for the anti CP position.