How can you support the death penalty?

Question

I dont understand how people can morally agree with the death penalty. People always say that if someone in your family was killed/raped, then you would want the killer/rapist to be killed. I dont believe in this logic. Once a killer or rapist is captured, they know that their lives are over one way or another. Killing them is just giving them the easy way out. Who is the government to decide who can live and who can die? Sure, these kind of people dont deserve to live in society, but that doesnt mean that they cant rot away in a cell. Also, it is claimed that the prospect of the death penalty scares away potential murderers, rapists, etc. This is most likely false as well, for people who would commit such atrocities obviously already have stunningly low regard for human life, and commit such acts knowing that the death penalty exists.
Besides, which is worse for society. Having the .000001% chance that a murderer could escape, or putting to death innocent people?

Answer 1

I think some people support the death penalty because they do not the hard facts about it. To some people it is easier to scream for revenge instead of taking the time to find out the facts.

Here are just a few.

The death penalty is not a deterrent. Homicide rates are much higher in states that have the death penalty than in states that do not.

The death penalty system costs much more than a system that does not have the death penalty. Much of these extra costs come way before the appeals begin. (In my opinion, some of the extra money should be spent on victims' services, which are underfunded.)

The death penalty is racially biased, but not in the way you may think. A defendent is twice as likely to face the death penalty if the victim was white than if the victim was non white.

More and more states have life without parole on the books. It means what it says and is no picnic to be locked up for 23 of 24 hours a day, with no hope of anything else.

Over 120 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence. In the majority of these cases, the evidence was not DNA, which is not often available. More often, the problem is one of mistaken eyewitnesses. After an execution, the case is closed. If the wrong person was executed the real killer is still out there. It is human nature to make mistakes and executing an innocent person, killing an innocent person in our name should be unacceptable in a civilized society.

Speeding up the process will certainly result in the execution of innocent people, some people just like us, our families and friends. Ordinary, law abiding people have been sentenced to death, spent years on death rows, and, thankfully, were saved in time.

The death penalty can be very hard on the families of murder victims. As the process goes on they are forced to relive their ordeal in the courts and in the media. The death penalty revictimizes families of murder victims. Life without parole is sure and swift and rarely appealed.

People who oppose the death penalty do not condone brutal and depraved acts and do not excuse the people who commit them.

Answer 2

I'm going to try to give a balanced look at this:

First of all, we're human, and not all humans can forgive easily, especially when a murder is especially gruesome.

Most murderers have a depraved indifference towards the lives of the people they kill. About 20 years ago, in NYC, there was a man who murdered two children - a brother and sister - by nailing boards to their heads. What was their crime? Only that of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Did they deserve to die for that? No. Does their murderer deserve to live for having killed two innocent children who never wronged him? How about Charles Manson and his 'family', who ripped the fetus from Sharon Tate's body? Jeffrey Dahmer? Ted Bundy? The serial murderer in Canada mentioned by another poster? There was a little seven-year-old girl killed not far from where I live a few years ago; I know her cousin and the cousin's grandmother. She was raped and murdered because her mother would not go out with the man who killed her.

The Biblical commandment does *not* read 'You shall not kill'; it reads 'You shall do no murder'. There's a world of difference between those two statements. If an individual is allowed to kill an attacker because he's in fear of his life, then the death penalty can be considered society's version of self-defense. Yes, murderers can and are sentenced to life in prison, but there's always the chance of escape. About five years ago, several murderers incarcerated in Texas did just that. When recaptured, they said they did it to try and start a new life. I don't think that was much comfort to the family of the policeman they murdered in his own driveway on Christmas Eve.

Some people believe that the death penalty is 'cruel and unusual punishment', and therefore forbidden by the US Constitution. Those people have done no research into what the framers of the Constitution meant by that. They forget the Spanish Inquisition, the burning of witches - even here in the US, in Salem, MA., and so many other easily researched examples. I will cite a brief version of the execution of Guy Fawkes, who was convicted of treason in England for trying to blow up the Houses of Parliament. I warn you, it's not for the squeamish:

First, he was hanged. Since the drop trap had not been invented, this meant slow strangulation. He was cut down while still alive, disemboweled, cut into four pieces, and finally beheaded. This was still pretty standard well into the 18th century.

Compare this to any of the methods of execution that have been used in America. Lethal injection is quite humane compared to Guy Fawkes' ordeal. We even use it on our pets and other animals when we don't want them to suffer from illness or accident.

That said, we must be very careful when sentencing those accused of murder. Yes, people can lie on the witness stand, but every year tools available to the police get better. DNA testing has cleared many who were falsely accused, and convicted many guilty parties who nearly got away with murder, literally.

Those who moralize about the death penalty should ask themselves one question: how would they feel if the unthinkable happened to one of their relatives or friends? It's easy to say that one would forgive, or be satisfied with a sentence of life in prison, but you can't *know* until you've stood in the shoes of a member of a victim's family.

Answer 3

I agree and the "punishment" never reaches the perpetrator because they receive a pardon when death arrives, it's the families of the perpetrators who are given the punishment... as is the case with these drug smugglers who are hung for their crimes. It's the parents and siblings who have to pick up the pieces, not the offender. Imprisonment and the horrendous acts that go on within the walls of the jails and are inflicted by other inmates surely would be a greater punishment.
And as far as human beings go, there is always doubt. Some are so unhinged they will confess to crimes they didn't commit. They might be a little unbalanced, but they don't deserve to die.

Answer 4

I can't support the death penalty. And I have had some very sick people do some very bad things to me, but I still couldn't advocate killing another human being. There are those that certainly do need to be segregated from society but to kill is wrong.

There are many reasons the death penalty is not only in-effective but increases violence and murder statistics.

Better to let 10 guilty go free than to hang ONE innocent person.

Peace.

Answer 5

I cant answer your question but I commiserate how terrible it is the hate and anger. People of a true spiritual nature do NOT think or feel that way though... it is mainly the athiests and the Catholics. These are the ones with the wretched hateful faces screaming to KILL HIM AGAIN after they have already fried the guy... because there is no closure. They were projecting all their own crap onto the offender.

Many of these folks are prime conveyers of the bigotry, hate, racism and attitudes that alienate the very same children who grow up to victimize them. Not pretty but poetic.

Answer 6

During WWII, after the British colonialist left when the Japanese invaded, there was anarchy going on for a while in Singapore. Mass lootings were going on and all sorts of crimes were occuring. The Japanese soldiers just beheaded a few looters and hung their head in public. The lootings stopped immediately and crime rate dropped to nil.

So how can you say that the death penalty doesn;t serve as a deterrent.

Answer 7

nonsense!!!!

what!?! are you on death row or something?

You just rambled on and on about nothing! first of all... its a form of deterance!

remember "He who lives by the sword... shall die by the sword" T
hey chose that lifestyle and they should be able to face the penaity.

First of all judgements are based on different reason ( usually the intensity of the crime) rehabilitation, restitution and OH YES! RETRIBUTION!

And NO! not all rapist or Killers know that their life is over once they are caught!

Honey! then why on earth are most racists REPEAT OFFENDERS?

yOU KNOW WHAT? I AM DONE WITH THIS QUESTION. I REALLY HOPE NOBODY MURDERS YOUR FAMILY IN COLD BLOOD... AND ALL THE PUNISHMENT THEY'LL RECIEVE IS A FREE EDUCATION IN PRISON ... WHILE LIVING ON YOUR TAX DOLLARS!!!

Answer 8

because sometimes keeping someone like that alive is worse punishment for the family of the victims than the fact that he murdered theirloved ones. We have proof here in Canada. Clifford Olson keeps writing, emailing and phoning his victims parents and sibs gloating about how he killed their teenagers and saying that if they give his "wife' $1000,000, he will tell them where he put the bodies. He should have been hanged.

Answer 9

Americans don't realize that the death penalty in the bible was only used on rare occasions. The only reason Americans use it is because of religious reasons, that's what I think anyway.

Answer 10

Because some people are abominations and should be wiped from this earth.

However, the death penalty is used far too much. It should be more selective and only used when guilt is found without a doubt.