Would you take responsibility for this?

Question

A hypothetical situation,
A prisoner is tried and convicted for a crime.

The country that this is in has the death penalty.

The prisoner is given the death penalty.

The prisoner is put to death by lethal injection.

He did not commit the crime he was accused of.

You are a citizen of this country.

As a citizen of the country whose legal system put this innocent man to death would you take responsibility (if only in part) for his death? Why/Why not?

What does this mean for countries that still have the death penalty?

Please explain your answers
I thank you in advance for your insight.

There apears to be confusion about the question, permit me to clear it up.

The prisoner has been convicted after a fair and impartial trial, the evidence shows that he did the crime and there has been no tampering with the evidence.

Due to an error with the technology used, the evidence has been honestly misinterperted.

He was sentanced to death and that sentance was carried out after many appeals.

Later the case was revisited and he was found by use of better and more fool proof technology to be inocent.

Hope this helps to clear things up.

Answer 1

Yes, I'm willing to take responsibility of a mistake of a DP if my society took all reasonable steps to prevent the mistake. Just as I am willing to do so for traffic deaths, workplace deaths, and other mortalities that my society contributed to.

Many conditions that we create in our society kill people. People die on highways that I created with my tax money. People die building structures that I live and work in. Convenience store owners die so I can have the service of a midnight purchase of beef jerkey and Diet Coke. Cops that my tax money arms accidently kill innocent people several times a year.

Few societal decisions are without dire consequences at some level. Society decides which costs are too high, and which are not. But seldom does it halt a practice simply because it is not perfect. We haven't stopped the building of a highway, even though we know that innocent people will die because of it. We have not closed 7-11's, even though we know that profession kills more than any other service industry. And for the same reason, we don't stop the imperfect DP.

In fact, the DP system is far more error proof than the system of Life without parole (LWOP), which is the same as a DP only with a longer waiting period. But the fact that a far larger percentage of innocent people have died in prison while serving a Life sentence than have been executed is not the issue.

There are costs of imperfection to every convenience that one enjoys. But with very few exceptions, citizens have tolerated (and therefore participated) in far more innocent deaths for far less important goals than the DP is trying to achieve. Just as society wants to reduce the mortality of less important conveniences like air travel, or workplace deaths; proponents of the DP support continuous improvement of the system as well as individual corrections to an error. But it would be duplicitous to ban the DP because of a potential error, but not to ban other citizen-supported sources with known errors that result in innocent deaths, like automobiles, airliners, cops with guns . . . .

But now for the opposite view. The last person executed in California had committed his crime while serving a Life sentence. It had been commuted from the DP when California temporarily banned it. He commissioned the killing from prison. In addition to his intend victim, the hired assasin killed three teenagers while committing that crime. Had the DP been carried out, four people, three who were innocent kids, would be alive. Would you take responsibility for their deaths???

Answer 2

No, I am not responsible for it. Being a citizen in this country does not means I have to be responsible for all the broken systems and the mistakes, mishap happened here.
There a millions of things going on everyday in this countries. How can one be responsible for all this things that had happened.

The fundamental problem is not capital punishment. It is the question of the justice system and the people who work in the justice department. If the prosecutors and the police has really done their investigation and work properly. If our judicial system is reliable and trustworthy, the problem will not be happening.
For most case, it is the sloppiness of the systems that cause the injustices. It is not necessary the capitol punishment. It may still be life time in prison, the poor guy will still get penalty for nothing. So the fundamental is the system and not the punishment.

Capitol punishment is a law and it acts as deterant to anyone who think and try to commit a horrific crime. Those who committed the crime knows what they are getting into. And they still insists in doing it. There should be no mercy to them. But to all fairness, the judicial system must be fair, scientific and objective with merits.

Answer 3

Responsibility, in my opinion, is a type of agreement within a person. It's also the acceptance of your own actions and your intentions, whether they be good or bad. When you take 'responsibility' for your actions, you are acknowledging the effects/consequences that may come from them. I relate love with responsibility...when it comes to children. To being dependable for your partner or for any person you love. Responsibility for taking their feelings into consideration when you do something. When you love a person, all of that becomes your responsibility. The difference between responsibility and duty is a thin line. Duty is something you do often for the overall benefit of others, and is often associated with honor - while responsibility by itself is less so. Duty is something more that you feel you HAVE to do, like a job. It's like a branch of responsibility. The two can go hand in hand, though. If you're in the military and an officer gives you a job, it's your responsibility to carry that duty out. Responsibility is something more intangible and innate, though. It's something that you don't need to be told to do, it's just natural to feel it. Love may or may not be our duty, depending on how you see it. I don't really see it as our duty because when I think duty, I think of something that you are almost obligated to do. Aka, you HAVE to. That you're doing it for some other huge unrelated cause other than you and the person(s) you love. And the best kind of love for me is the kind that is free and voluntary....

Answer 4

Everyone realized that mistakes can be made with our legal system. Your example is one of the worst. Since the government is a government of the people (just for this question only) then each person would have to assume moral responsibility. This also applies to the guilty person that gets off and is free and goes out and kills again. I'm from Texas and you must know how Texans feels about the death penalty. I live in a civilized world that has chosen a set of laws to govern themselves by. If you or anyone choses to break these laws, then the punishment is spelled out. I also recognize that the system is not perfect for many reasons but there are checks and balances set into this system to allow a convicted felon to appeal his sentence. Still I realize mistakes can be made. But there are some people that commit crimes that are so heinous they do not deserve to live among men. We have chosen to put these people to death. Did Hussein deserve to live? How many people do you have to torture and kill before you deserve to die? What if Hitler had been tried. . .did he deserve to live among men? No.
And as a final thought. . you don't get the death penalty for simply murdering someone. You have to commit a crime that is worse than that, more severe than that, more violent than that. So for everyone crying to abolish the death penalty, let's put them in jail, parole them in a few years, and then let them live next door to you.

Answer 5

You cannot take the responsibility for laws that your country have. It's not your fault if your country uses the death penalty as a punishment.
All you can do is keep writing to your politicians and Prime Ministers department to let them know that you are opposed to the death penalty.

I write to lots of countries to tell them to stop using capital punishment and each year more countries abolish it so it does some good.
Many people, over the years have been executed mistakenly, this is only one reason that it should not be used, and man does not have the right to take a life. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Answer 6

I support the death penalty and believe it can honestly be enforced by a jury and strenuous review. Given those criteria I believe the error is very low, if at all.

However, in the event of an error, every person in the country is responsible for that person's life. However, it has to be proven first since it was already shown the person was guilty.

No system is free from error. I am more concerned about the killer or child molester released to harm the innocent again. Society needs to be protected from them. The greater harm is and has been done by criminals re-released into society than by those wrongly convicted.

Answer 7

If I disagree with the death penalty yet choose not to do anything about it, I say I have no responsibility.

It's literally impossible for me to actively pursue changing every wrong policy in my country. If I choose to be an activist for that, what about prisoners in Guantanamo Bay? Do I need to do something about that as well?

How much is enough? Write a letter to my congressman? Protest? Shoot a judge? At what stage do I have no more responsibility?

Lawmakers do PLENTY that citizens don't like, blame them. The Supreme Court has a huge say in this practice. Should I ignore their rulings? This is a very hairy issue.

Answer 8

Are you frickin kidding me?
I wish my country still had the death penality.

It is the courts fault, not mine. I personally don't have any control over how that person's trial might have went.

People should be given a lesser sentence if they're not sure and should NEVER be sentenced to death if there is not excellent evidence or a confession to prove they did it.

Your question makes no sense. I think you need to find a better argument against capital punishment.

Answer 9

As long as we are human there will be the possibility for human error. Where individuals lives are concerned that is unacceptable. I am totally against the death penalty. However, I think every individual in a society where it is carried out bears some responsibility for the abuse, misuse, and mistakes of their justice system.

Answer 10

I don't know what do you mean by taking responsibility in this context.. I can feel sorry for the innocent man and can vent my anger towards the govt and the jury system and feel ashamed of them and join the protest rallies. An innocent man is killed. That's all I can do so that they get a clear message and learn some very good lessons.