ARe you for or against the death penalty?

Answer 1

for it

Answer 2

Your question deserves more than a simple for or against answer or a slogan. Some answers you received include mistakes.

You don't have to condone brutal crimes or want the criminals who commit them to avoid a harsh punishment to ask whether the death penalty prevents or even reduces crime and whether it risks killing innocent people.

Risks of executing innocent people-
124 people on death rows have been released with proof that they were wrongfully convicted. DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and isn’t a guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that don’t.

We have a good alternative. Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people.

The death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn't apply to people with money. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

The death penalty doesn't necessarily help families of murder victims. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

Problems with speeding up the process. Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

Answer 3

Against.

Answer 4

FOR

It most assuredly does serve as a deterrent. Those that are caught, convicted & eventually get executed will never murder again!

Now, for those that haven't been caught yet, they may continue to murder based on their own mindset, whether sane or insane.

Personally, I feel those that take an innocent life, simply don't respect life enough, or others, to the point of forfeiting their own because of their transgressions!

As to those that get wrongly convicted & eventually executed, I am sorry. If U truly are innocent & you've led a good life, make damn sure you are acquited! If you've led a so-so life and just happened to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time, where an eyewitness or DNA puts you at the scene of the crime & U had possible motive, I think your time is done unless U get a good lawyer & beg for life in prison (it is supposed to be "beyond a shadow of a doubt," right?)

Answer 5

Against - it doesn't actually solve anything or work as a deterrent- it just acts as a crude and uncivilised means of giving people a sense of retribution - if you look at the kind of crimes the death penalty is considered for, they are the kind of crimes you wouldn't commit unless you were in a mindset that doesn't really consider repercussions.
The death penalty would only work in a practical sense against lesser crimes, and you'd have to be certifiable to consider doing that.
To the chap above who suggests that it is an effective deterrent - your a moron. I choose that word carefully. Your a moron because only a moron could look at a country that has the death penalty, see that murders and other extreme crimes are still being committed, and say "Yep, that's working, no need to change that".
If a desire to find and address the issues that cause people to commit these crimes, rather than looking away because its too hard makes me a liberal pussy - fair enough. Better that than a blind, hatefilled, ineffective bewildered old puffin.
Imagine going to work one day when suddenly two police cars fly out of nowhere, and before you know it your face is planted on the bonnet of one, and the 7 foot gorrilla that just put you there is telling you your under arrest for murder. Your hauled off to a station, and before you know it your the scumbag in the papers, and your facing a murder trial for a crime you didnt commit. Despite the fact your innocent, and you keep saying as much, the case plays out and your found guilty. You sit in a cell, trying to get your head around the fact you were just sentenced to be killed. Your still sure that somehow it wont happen, because the whole thing is so insane, so unjust, that it simply cant be true. Appeals go by, and one day you find yourself walking down a hall, trying to come to terms with the fact your own government is about to kill you for a no good reason, and that thats it - whatever you had planned for the rest of your life, f£$kin forget it. I'd like to see the majority of imbeciles who think that the death penalty is a great idea stand up to that one- perhaps one of you would like to venture a number of how many innocent lives a year you think its acceptable to accidentaly snuff out?

Answer 6

I'm rather split right in between on this topic.
To put someone else's life in our own hands, no matter how long we've had to think about it, isn't justifiable in my opinion.
Sure the death sentence allows the family of the victim(s) to feel somewhat better about what happened, there ALWAYS is a chance that the person is innocent.
What then? What if, twenty years later, after the accused has been executed, something new comes up and turns out that he was innocent after all? It's kinda hard to apologize to a dead guy.

Answer 7

Totally against it.

movies like Green Mile, Last Dance and True Crime were enough to convince me that the death penalty is atrocious

Answer 8

Against!

Answer 9

as for a deterrent, NO! but as for a punishment yes! and let me say that, I have been to the place and have seen the people that sit on death row, it is not a pretty thing and NO ONE can ever know what it is like inside the housing unit that holds them or what runs through the minds of those that sit on death row, it is sickening and the fact that they wait with no human contact other than that of themselves, just waiting to die never knowing when - satisfies me, especially when they have harmed or killed others that are undeserving like children!
and this maybe lame but I wish we could include animals too!

Answer 10

Against--that's giving offenders the easy way out. Let them rot in prison for the rest of their lives.
Additionally, mistakes are still made--I would hate to see an innocent person killed.
Two wrongs don't make a right.

Answer 11

im all for it if the person has killed someone and they think that it was the right thing to do and that they would do it agian after they go to some metal hospital and spend some time and jail but if they realize it was wrong and truly realize it was wrong i think they shouldnt have to do the death penalty