What is your opinion on the death penalty?

Question

we had a 2 day discussion on this. the entire class was with the eye for an eye sorta thing. if you murder a person(s) than you should die. The reasons they stated were pretty good: why should we have to pay tax to feed a killer and keep them alive in jail? the get what they deserve. some were against this but said: we would be teaching the killer that killing is okay in the end. i personally believe that if you have the thought in your head and you go and murder someone, than there is something wrong with you. thats just it. There is something mentally wrong with you. it is not natural for a human to desire killing their own kind. other people said, well maybe they had family issus. lots of people have family issues- they dont go around killing people. i think that it has something to do with the way a person can resond to a situation. the insight in their brains tells them to kill- its not right. they should be kept in a special mental hospital. no one can help being mentally ill.

i dunno, im just saying, if you honestly (no pulling the "im retarted" card) dont have a sense that killing is wrong, and of course it doesnt have to be a big thing, but there is a snip, or tweeze in the brain. there is just something wrong...

i dunno, im just saying, if you honestly (no pulling the "im retarted" card) dont have a sense that killing is wrong, and of course it doesnt have to be a big thing, but there is a snip, or tweeze in the brain. there is just something wrong...

i dunno, im just saying, if you honestly (no pulling the "im retarted" card) dont have a sense that killing is wrong, and of course it doesnt have to be a big thing, but there is a snip, or tweeze in the brain. there is just something wrong...

oops i got impatient with my computer sorry bout that

Answer 1

It sounds like you discussed it from the point of view of whether it is moral and that is a good place to start. Mentally ill people can be executed and they have been in the recent past. All that the law requires is that at the time they are actually executed they are sane enough to know what is happening. (That can be accomplished with medications and it has been so that executions of seriously mentally ill people went ahead.)

There are other things to talk about. You don't have to sympathize with criminals or want them to avoid a terrible punishment to ask if the death penalty prevents or even reduces crime and to think about the risks of executing innocent people. Sorry for the length but this is a very important subject.

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 doesn't 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 certain and speedy. 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 certain, takes effect immediately and it is also 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.

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 2

This is a very heated topic: in my class we discussed it after reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Personally, I believe that murderers should be put to death if it is a matter of public safety. Jails are not impenetrable and we cannot afford to have criminals out where they could harm more innocent people. Jails are expensive and they provide the criminal with many amenities including ice cream, television, a bed, outdoor hours, etc. Some homeless people commit crimes just so they can go to jail because it is nice. I think the death penalty is probably a deterrent as well. However, if life in prison without the chance of parole is offered and the criminal does not have a good chance of escaping, perhaps they should not be killed - the death penalty is expensive too. On the subject of the mentally ill: it is very difficult to accurately diagnosis someone. "Mentally ill" can also hold a variety of definitions, depending on the point of view. I don't think someone who simply didn't know right from wrong at the time of the crime is always mentally ill, but if someone is mentally ill (based on good evidence and a diagnosis), I do not think they can be held accountable. I'm not sure how I feel about "temporary insanity" though. Very tricky...my I'm still very uncertain about my general opinion on the topic. It really depends on the case.

Answer 3

It's not true that no one can help being mentally ill - they can cooperate with therapists and get on medication. Medication doesn't always work, and therapy doesn't always work either, but it does help many.
The motivation for killing has always been recognized by society as something very important. If I kill you because you have 39 cents and I want it, that is damn despicable and I deserve to spend life in prison. If I kill you because I think you're possessed by the devil, and that killing you will send you to heaven, then obviously I'm suffering a delusional disorder, something along the lines of schizophrenia or schizo-affective disorder. Such people need to be confined in a humane setting.
If I kill you out of self-defense, and a jury agrees that it was self defense, I should go free, as it is only natural for people to defend themselves.
If I kill you by accident, such as when drunk while driving, that is manslaughter, and does not deserve the death penalty.
We should also be merciful to the person who kills someone begging to die because the victim is suffering from a horrible disease. In other words, I believe in legalized euthanasia. There are a couple of safeqaurds that need to be put in place if we were to allow such a thing; nasty family members could be after a juicy inheritance, for example.
Finally, there are serial rapists and serial killers and gangsters who kill for profit or to protect their trade, and terrorists. Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City bomber) is a good two word argument for capital punishment.
There are several problems with capital punishment. The first is that it is embraced out of the belief that it acts as a deterrence. It does not, and you live in a dreamworld if you think it does. It is nothing less than society's way of getting legal vengeance and should be recognized as such.
Secondly, many people are wrongly convicted of murder, and it is not a small percentage. The criminal justice system is racially biased (study after study has shown this). Even if the attorneys and judges aren't biased, juries are. Black men routinely receive more severe punishment for the same crime than white men do. Also, many confessions are coerced - the cops deprive the suspect of sleep by continuous questioning until he or she finally confesses just to be able to go to sleep. You can retract a confession, but if you already have a record, it doesn't mean much. Then there is the problem with suspects who are retarded. They often do not understand the severity of the charges, even when they say they do (retarded people are passive and easily led).
For all these reasons, there ought to be a national moratorium on the death sentence.
Watch the movie "Dead Men Walking" with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon. This is a true story and a great movie.

Answer 4

I think it should be based on the situation. A person that kills in the defense of their family shouldn't even go to jail. A person that gets drunk and kills someone on the road should go to jail, but not the death penalty. A person that rapes and kills a young girl should fry....slowly....
The current system is biased towards humane treatment of criminals. Which in some cases is ok. But a convicted baby rapist having all the amenities is just ludicrous. I feel that the punishment should be based on the individual act, and that there should be jails, and concentration camps. Humane treatment should not apply to those that commit inhumane acts. I am in favor of leniency, when warranted. I am also in favor of public execution, when warranted, as a deterent. Most people will not agree with me, but there would certainly be a LOT less heinous acts commited, if a potential criminal knew they would burn for it.

Answer 5

There are 2 motives for opposing the demise penalty which the well-known public of the united kingdom inhabitants agree on, which became into why the demise penalty became into abolished in 1998. they are: one million. Inhumanity. that's imposssible for a state to homicide somebody and shelter the ethical 'severe floor' 2. Miscarriage of justice: if something is going incorrect, and it does go incorrect in capital situations, the guy who's completed cant come lower back.

Answer 6

There are only three persons that are not accountable for a killing- one that is mentally ill or sleepwalking or a child that is not cognitive, one who does so in self-defense, and one who aborts a fetus in hopes of saving the mother's life. And there are always exceptions to the rules- such as accidents.

The death penalty is a way of exacting justice. Yes, it is okay to be forgiving, but the only one with this entitlement is the party of the victim. Other than that, there are greater things than life- such as justice, freedom etc... Having a man sit behind bars for 45 years just waiting to die is worst than killing him. This is torture. Some argue that it is inhumane to kill, but often times forget that indefinite imprisonment is too.

Answer 7

I'm for it for those guilty of capital crimes

Regarding the arguments against -

The argument that state sanctioned DP tells the perp that murder is OK falls apart the minute we arm police officers. We know that someone, somewhere, will die at the hands of a police officer. The difference between a valid police shooting and a murder is self defense (and/or public defense). And even anti-DP accept that logic, and accept arming cops knowing that someone will die because of it. So death is already sanctioned when in a form of self-defense, which is what the DP is. You're not sanctioning murder, your sanctioning self-defense.

The argument that murderers have an excuse (mental illness, family problems, etc.) is disregarded for lesser crimes. No anti-DP would let someone steal their credit card because they were having family problems. Given that, they can't disallow excuses for crime in some cases, and allow them in others.

Mentally Ill - We as a society have (correctly) determined that most mentally ill persons still have the same rights and privledges as anyone else. We only remove their rights under extreme circumstances. As such, if we determine that mentally ill persons have the same rights and privledges as anyone else, then they must have the same civic responsibilities and suffer the same consequences as anyone else. So unless we obtain the right to identify and round up mentally ill persons to prevent them from legally killing us, we have to hold them to the same legal standard of punishment.

Arguments for (short list) -

Best example - watch the History Channel's show on the Aryan Brotherhood. The "star" of the show has killed 22 people while in prison. The failure to put that man to death has resulted in 22 additional murders. Clearly, nothing short of the DP can stop this man and others like him from killing. Anyone who is opposed to the DP for this man is essentially aiding all of this man's future crimes because they refuse to recognize the DP as the solution. He is living proof that no other punishment form in America prevents the death of additional victims. And knowing that, failing to DP that person is an intentional failure to defend his future victim.

The last man DP'd in California was so sentenced because he contracted killings while serving a life sentence (commuted from an earlier death sentence). The killer he hired assassinated three innocent teenagers in the process of carrying out the contract. The anti-DP advocates have those teenager's blood on their hands. Had the DP been allowed originally, three kids would be alive. Through originally disallowing the DP, and using alternate penalties proposed by anti-DP advocates (Life without parole), three kids died painfully.

Answer 8

I think it can be an effective form of punishment (and an even more effective deterrent to crime) if practiced justly. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is we have misapplied the law and allowed modern sentimentality to cloud the issue.

Answer 9

I don't think anyone is really bad o_O. People do things for pleasure, whether it is their own, or others'. Idealy, i'd like to see them repent.... But that isn't always the case -.-

Answer 10

I disagree with it 100%. We send them mixed messages that killing is wrong but it's okay if you killed someone, or if they deserve it. God is the only one who should have to power to take life