Can you give me a legitimate argument for capital punishment...?

Question

...keeping in mind this:
- Christians, you are taught to believe that only God can judge. Who are you/we to decide whether somebody may live?

- Most of the people who are sentenced to death deserve it -- I'll admit that. But what I'm uncomfortable with is giving the government the power to take life.

Pro-capital punishment people, how do you respond?

*inappropriate and offensive answers will be flagged

I'm talking about the death penalty. I recognize the need for jails and other punishments.

Answer 1

Wingshooter has it correct. The only reason for capital punishment is as a way of prevention, no other reason is justifiable. Most people that are against capital punishment believe that it is because the community wants revenge, this is not the case. By eliminating the person you eliminate the possibility that they will ever do it again. Lock them up and they could get out (escape) or get out on parole (parole boards are full of idiots) and besides, I don't want to have to pay for some deranged psychopath to live in relative harmony and security on my buck.
I'm against capital punishment for "normal" criminals. Emotional charged murders, accidental, etc. but not for cold blooded, premeditated or mass murdering or raping/mayhem.

Hope this helps

Answer 2

What about
You reap what you sow and an eye for an eye..?

Setting aside religion, morally we shouldn't do others harm. If people were allowed to get away with murder we'd have total anarchy. Everyone is held accountable one way or another and consequences are guaranteed in life, whether they be good or bad. I don't feel that we decide who lives and who dies, it's not about a person. It's about an event, a situation, an action, a choice. If someone chooses to harm someone else then they've decided to take the chance that their actions may be punishable. It's already been put in writing. Someone has to take charge of that. I agree it's not good to have the government in charge of certain things, but who else will do it if they don't? The laws and rules were set in place long before whoever did what to so-and-so.

It's not about whats right or wrong or if it's the truth or a lie. It's about how the law is applied.

Answer 3

I'm not a capital punishment fan by any means. And I, too, don't like the state executing people. That said, I look at the folk who are executed and from my point of view, they have forfeited their right to exist. Ted Bundy killed, what 30 or 40 women? Trading his life for even one of these innocents is scant payment. John Gacy, erstwhile clown and murderer of young boys. Good riddance.

Indeed, I worry about the arbitrariness of the application of capital punishment. And I worry about mistakes (the greatest horror) and we know there have been some. And I don't see it as a deterrent - look at Texas that has executions nearly every week. "Don't mess with Texas" has a whole new meaning there...

But vengeance and retribution, while not the nicest and kindest attributes, are part of our psyche.

So, in summary, I don't like it but I feel it is necessary.

Answer 4

I see where you're getting at, and I used to think like you.. We don't "give" the government all the power..

We have the fairest criminal system in the United States wherein we all are innocent until proven guilty... There is a fair trial, appeal system, etc... Not only that, We the people decide (the jury) whether one gets sentenced to death...

Most likely all those who get the death penalty deserved it if all twelve say so... In this system, I support the death penalty. Any other, I wouldn't.

Answer 5

Society has to act in defense of the peaceful, law or rule abiding members it contains. Otherwise, who wants to be in that society!

Capital punishment has been referred to as a deterrent. But when it takes a minimum of 20 years to 'execute' the execution, that deterrent loses its force.

Yes, God is the only judge. But what you can easily surmise from that is the restriction placed on society from punishing ANY infraction of legitimate law. Are the jaywalker, the speeder, the drunk driver, the embezzler, the mass murderer, all left to their devices until heavenly judgment is conferred upon them at death? Society would cease to function.

Government is charged with making, interpreting and enforcing the law. If you suggest that mere imprisonment satisfies the deterrence requirement, I can point to decades of crime stats that state the complete opposite.

Is government the best outsourced provider for execution? I don't know. I hope to NEVER EVER find out, in any context, from a personal standpoint. Should families carry out the execution on behalf of their slain family members (akin to revenge killings sanctioned in other, less developed societies)? I don't know, maybe that may temper the call for capital punishment from the victims' side, but we can all surely understand their lust for blood.

The state, more than it supports and enables execution, supports and enables an unrealistic campaign of rehabilitation. NOTHING a person can do can really redeem themselves in the eyes of those who lost someone. And do the disinterested really want a rehabilitated murderer in their midsts? Unlikely.

So what do we do with those in society who by their action have disowned society? We ostracize them, through imprisonment or death. Cost figures are purportedly the same, but I can readily believe that if there was enough jail space to put people away as the law allows (and not free them as the US is demanding California do, rather than let them sleep on the floor for pete's sake!), then we can begin to really prosecute ALL criminals and dent the murder and high crimes rate, by attacking the petty and misdemeanor type crimes. That's where MOST violent crimes start, in youth, in small increments.

A free and peaceful society MUST judge and punish offenders of the law and the peace. Otherwise, society as a concept becomes moot. We should not shy away from severe punishment and incarceration for crimes against humanity and the general peace. Otherwise our societies are a sham.

Does any human have the right to take another's life? Do two 'wrongs' make a right? I don't know. Nor do you. Until, God forbid, it happens to you. Then your stance would likely be less objective and more personal.

I pray no one ever gets killed again. I hope that prayer goes answered. In the meantime, we as a society have to do what we have to do to keep the good people prosperous and the bad people out of our way, for good.

That is not opinion as much as it is common sense.

Answer 6

Do not judge lest you be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:1,2 NASB

My standard is capital punishment for premeditated murder. I am willing to be judged by that standard.

Romans 13:1: Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
Romans 13:4b: But if you do evil, be afraid; for it (the government) does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.

That looks to me like permission for government to punish evil.

Genesis 9:6: Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.

I read that as authorizing capital punishment.

This is the first time I have quoted the Bible on Yahoo Answers, but the question made it an issue by miss-quoting Matthew 7:1-2 and addressing itself to Christians.

Answer 7

Don't blame the government, The laws were voted on by the people of each state and we go to court and let juries of regular citizens sit through hours and weeks of trials and they have many choices to choose from depending on all of the evidence presented to them as to what punishment the defendant deserves! The defendant must answer for the crime they committed according to the law of the land.And they deserve what they get.If you don't happen to like our system,you have the right to try to get the law changed but its quite a feat if you can get it done.

Answer 8

Criminal Populations are bursting at the seams and costing the Citizens of America billions. Then these extremely violent individuals get put back on the street to further corrupt our society.
As a Christian, Jesus taught me that the law was good, but could not save us. We are saved by grace because all are sinners.

Answer 9

I'm against capital punishment for pretty much the same reasons as you. Also consider the possibility, although remote, that someone who is executed may be later proven innocent. It's rare, but it has happened more than once, which is more than enough.

Answer 10

Point #1: Is the death penalty a deterrent?
"We must impose a deterrent to actions that are murderous to the general population" - This is one of the biggest misguided perceptions concerning the death penalty. In 2005, 94% of executions worldwide were committed by China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United States (the numbers fluctuate from year to year, but the U.S. still remains in the top 3 or 4 countries with the highest number of executions). Yet at the same time, violent crimes in the U.S. that are punishable by death are increasing in the U.S. while those same crimes are decreasing in countries that have abolished the death penalty. For example, Canada's homicide rate has declined by 40% since 1975 when they abolished the death penalty. Whether or not Canada's homicide rate had been declining before 1975 is unknown to me but it's not the point - the point is that while the homicide rate in countries without the death penalty has been decreasing, the U.S.'s has been steadily increasing. Even when you factor out all of the homicides that aren't punishable by death (e.g., drunk driver kills a family), we still are one of the top nations in the world who execute the most people. My point: whether or not the death penalty is an effective deterrent in general is, at best, unknown.

Point #2: The economic impact
Another misguided perception is that the death penalty is cheaper than life-long incarcerations which isn't true. It costs between 2.5 to 5 mil dollars to execute one person (from conviction to execution) compared to less than 1 mil from conviction to life-long incarceration for one person. For example, Florida spends on average from 25 mil to 50 mil per year MORE on capital punishment cases than it does on life-long incarceration cases. This trend is not exclusive to certain states who impose the death penalty. The cost impact exists in all states that have the death penalty, including Texas who executes more people quicker than any other state in the union. My point: It's cheaper to incarcerate death row inmates for life than it is to keep them alive indefinitely until execution. Why? Death row inmates are automatically granted appeals and appeals have a high administrative cost (not to mention that we still have to pay to maintain their existence until their execution).

Even if we were to forget about the moral and religious implications of the death penalty, we are still stuck with issues - some that are unique to the United States and some that aren't. For example, the U.S. makes executions more expensive than life-long incarcerations because we recognize the importance of due process (in other words, the economic impact is a consequence of our societal values even though we tend to think of the criminal justice system as an "economic resource hogger"). Furthermore, we have yet to gather conclusive (or even semi-conclusive) data on the effectiveness of capital punishment as a deterrent when compared to other countries without capital punishment.

I'm not saying I'm against the death penalty. I'm saying that we need to understand all the factors that are involved in it before we can answer such a controversial question because even regardless of the religious and personal moral principles, in the end we still don't know what we're doing.