What's your opinion of the death penalty? Is it ever justified?

Question

Come on, people, I'm asking for in-depth opinions, not just a few-word answer, please.

If not the death penalty, then who should be responsible for the upkeep of these criminals, the tax payers? I know I don't want to have to support some ******* for the rest of his or her natural life. Do you?

Answer 1

Yes i believe it is justified for i believe that if someone takes a life they deserve to have their life taken. To think of all the rapists, murders, and etc. people their are in the world, it is not right to have them remain alive if all they do in the world is take the people we love from the world.

It costs an average of $20,000 to imprison someone for 1 year,
to think that a person guilty of first degree murder is sentenced to 25 years in prison... thats approx. 500k

So unless u think its okay to forgive someone for their sins they commited, for the lives they have taken and the lives they have ruined. then dont enforce the death penalty.

But i believe in the death penalty because i believe that is the only real justice that is even justified in this world... because all the murders and rapists out there are still alive and will be out in about a decade to commit the same crimes.

Answer 2

I am against the death penalty. Mostly because there are too many cases where an innocent person gets convicted. If they are sent to jail they can be let out, and while they will have lost some of their life they still have a chance to make something of what is left of it. But dead is permanent. That they are vindicated afterwards doesn't matter anymore, because they are too dead to care.

If hypothetically you are asking if I know for a fact that the person did it and therefore is it justified in that case, I'm not sure but I would say no. Life is life. I do believe in God and that He is just, so eventually the killer would get justice. But if we kill him then it is still taking a life that doesn't belong to us to take (since it belongs to God). I would also point out that no matter which God you believe in, He wants us to come back to Him. If you kill the person, he never has the chance to come back to God and try to earn forgiveness.

Some would argue he doesn't deserve forgiveness, but God says anything can be forgiven if we truly repent. Killing someone in an attempt to prevent them from forgiveness solely because we don't believe he deserves it has a tinge of revenge in it, which I do think is wrong.

But these are the thoughts of someone who has never had a friend or family member murdered. I don't truly know how I'd feel if I were in that situation. I don't know that I would want the death penalty or I would still be against it even if the murderer killed someone close to me. So I still have some doubts, but in the end for now anyway I have to go with it not being justified.

Answer 3

If someone is 100% guilty - then yes, it is justified. For some people there will never be "rehabilitation". Some people are just cold-blooded, unsympathetic, murderers and rapists. Why should we waste tax payer dollars to house and feed these people for the rest of their lives? I say good riddance, let god, or whoever, deal with you.

Answer 4

It is justified far more often than it is used.

There are many, many convicts with murder convictions who should be executed, but will not because of the squeamishness of too many people to do the hard, but right thing.

When I see foolishness like sex-offender lists, where sex offenders' addresses are published because they're STILL DANGEROUS, I am left wondering what idiot ever supported their being released? Child molesters and violent rapists don't magically become *cured*, they have demonstrated a level of depravation that only death will cure. Let's just stop the insanity and get rid of these people.

Same with murderers. Many murderers are guilty beyond any doubt. Time to send them to their Judgement.

Answer 5

I for one don't believe that anyone has the right to take the life of anyone else. Will it still happen? Probably, but it won't be by my hands. Who am I to decide whether or not a person deserves to live or die? It would all be based on some sort of moral code and those differ from person to person, which means that what is deserving of "death" would differ from person to person, which means there can never be a clear answer anyways.

Answer 6

It's justified in only the most heinous of crimes. It prevents the convict from ever comitting the same crime again. If our criminal justice system worked properly, there would be no need for the death penalty. Many dangerous convicts are released from prison, only to commit more crimes. If our justice system kept these people in prison, they wouldn't be able to commit the types of crimes that warrant the death penalty.

Answer 7

Yes, but it needs to be much more rare than it actually is.

There are some people whose continued existence is a severe threat to society. For example, Timothy McVeigh was executed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and I have no problem with that. However, I think that many people who are executed should have received a life prison sentence instead.

Answer 8

Everything that I have heard says that it costs more to sentence someone to death because of all the court costs with appeals and such.

But aside from that, no human has the right to take the life of another human.

Answer 9

I can't even see that human skidmark from Florida who buried the little girl alive after sexually abusing her without wanting to throttle him slowly myself! If I were in charge any person who murdered or sexually abused a child or woman would be squirming on a sharp stake up his aasss
in a very short time!

Answer 10

I'm not necessarily for the death penalty but it would certainly save alot of taxpayers money. I think they should keep prisons like they were in the 1900's, no frills and forced hard labour.