Verdict - Death Penalty/Capital Punishment

[matthew]

I simply don't see why, say, a convicted, remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty because another guy in another case might receive unduly.

Your reasoning is still fucked and totally backward. That remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty, exactly because it might also be handed down to a person who is innocent.

I don't personally believe a death penalty should be use in any instance...but, using your original [low] moral bar (it is ok for the state to kill people), the logic in your argument still fails.

So because of a "might", it should be outlawed?......and not have full retribution for people who are convicted of brutal, heinous murders?

You would permit grave injustices to go without full redress because of a "might"........that is more than backwards...it's senseless.

It's not called a retributionary. It's called a penitentiary.

Serving time is a form of retribution administered by the state. You're paying for your crime. I'm all for rehabing and trying to change people so that they don't commit crimes again.......but what's justice without retribution?

[numberthirty]

It's not called a retributionary. It's called a penitentiary.

Serving time is a form of retribution administered by the state. You're paying for your crime. I'm all for rehabing and trying to change people so that they don't commit crimes.......but what's justice without retribution?

Penitent
: feeling or expressing humble or regretful pain or sorrow for sins or offenses

Retribution
: the dispensing or receiving of reward or punishment especially in the hereafter

One of those will get you where you want to go. It's not retribution.

[krs]

I simply don't see why, say, a convicted, remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty because another guy in another case might receive unduly.

Your reasoning is still fucked and totally backward. That remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty, exactly because it might also be handed down to a person who is innocent.

I don't personally believe a death penalty should be use in any instance...but, using your original [low] moral bar (it is ok for the state to kill people), the logic in your argument still fails.

So because of a "might", it should be outlawed?......and not have full retribution for people who are convicted of brutal, heinous murders?

You would permit grave injustices to go without full redress because of a "might"........that is more backwards...it's senseless.

'Retribution' is a relative term. That is to say, it is completely dependent on the morals of the individual evaluating a given situation. I do not see a death penalty as anything close to 'full retribution'. Death penalties, as I see them, are barbaric forms of revenge. If we were just taking a person out of the gene pool or whatever, there would not be an audience, for example. The victim's family would not be present. It would not be a public show, for people to watch and get satisfaction from. A death penalty is taking a life, and when that life is innocent, it becomes legalized murder. Rationalize death penalties however you like. They are indeed, revenge.

[matthew]

I simply don't see why, say, a convicted, remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty because another guy in another case might receive unduly.

Your reasoning is still fucked and totally backward. That remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty, exactly because it might also be handed down to a person who is innocent.

Not really. Even if we knew the state only executed the guilty, it completes a circle. We need to try to break that circle.

How do you proposed to redress a particularly brutal, heinous, premeditated murder? Lock the person up for good so he or she can "think" about their crime? I don't see how that pays for the crime.

It seems some people here don't believe that justice includes retribution......I don't know how argue against a notion which is so obviously unsound as to make it ridiculous. You commit a crime, any crime, and you have to pay for it. In the cases we're alluding to here......you pay with your life.

[AnthonyCinder]

So because of a "might", it should be outlawed?......and not have full retribution for people who are convicted of brutal, heinous murders?

You would permit grave injustices to go without full redress because of a "might"........that is more backwards...it's senseless.

No, how is it "permitting grave injustices" if the person is locked up? Neither he nor anyone is suggesting that, because of the possibility that the person may be innocent, the court throw the case out and put them on the street. We're saying that it's better to lock up a person who might be innocent of a crime than to kill a person who might be innocent of the crime. Killing a person who might be innocent, even if it happens rarely, is unacceptable. And I'm with the people who say it's not acceptable even if you are certain of guilt.

It's not called a retributionary. It's called a penitentiary.

Serving time is a form of retribution administered by the state. You're paying for your crime. I'm all for rehabing and trying to change people so that they don't commit crimes.......but what's justice without retribution?

Justice and retribution aren't the same thing. Justice can (and should) exist without retribution. Maybe that's where we disagree, philosophically.

[matthew]

It's not called a retributionary. It's called a penitentiary.

Serving time is a form of retribution administered by the state. You're paying for your crime. I'm all for rehabing and trying to change people so that they don't commit crimes.......but what's justice without retribution?

Penitent
: feeling or expressing humble or regretful pain or sorrow for sins or offenses

Retribution
: the dispensing or receiving of reward or punishment especially in the hereafter

One of those will get you where you want to go. It's not retribution.

Yeah but feeling bad about a crime doesn't redress a crime. I can feel bad about embezzling money, but unless I at least attempt to give it back.....there's no justice done.

Likewise with the death penalty- if someone commits a heinous, cruel and premeditated murder which warrants capital punishment but later "feels bad", so what? There's still a dead person and a society as a whole which both demand justice.

[AnthonyCinder]

How do you proposed to redress a particularly brutal, heinous, premeditated murder? Lock the person up for good so he or she can "think" about their crime? I don't see how that pays for the crime.

OK, what about this:

A person kills one hundred innocent people.

Even with your views, the state can only kill that murder once. That's the exact same number of times that the state can execute a person who has murdered exactly one innocent person. I think we both agree that the killer of one hundred people has committed a worse crime than the killer of one person.

How do you propose we "redress" the murder of the hundred people when only one person has committed the crimes?

Your logic doesn't allow for that.

[krs]

It seems some people here don't believe that justice includes retribution......I don't know how argue against a notion which is so obviously unsound as to make it ridiculous. You commit a crime, any crime, and you have to pay for it. In the cases we're alluding to here......you pay with your life.

I have not read the entire thread, but I'm pretty sure that is not what the anti- crowd is arguing. It all comes down the the sanctity of life and how highly a person regards it.

How, "pro-life" a person is.

"Fitting punishment" is a subjective notion that people will disagree on. This is morality we are taking about. There are no "right" and "wrong" answers...only, how high you place the bar for yourself.

[AnthonyCinder]

My point with the above is that what the state metes out is not a form of retribution, and in many cases, it simply cannot be. Justice isn't the same as retribution.

[jimmy two hands]

How do you proposed to redress a particularly brutal, heinous, premeditated murder? Lock the person up for good so he or she can "think" about their crime? I don't see how that pays for the crime.

OK, what about this:

A person kills one hundred innocent people.

Even with your views, the state can only kill that murder once. That's the exact same number of times that the state can execute a person who has murdered exactly one innocent person. I think we both agree that the killer of one hundred people has committed a worse crime than the killer of one person.

How do you propose we "redress" the murder of the hundred people when only one person has committed the crimes?

Your logic doesn't allow for that.

Reanimate their corpse after you kill them, so that you can kill them again, ad infinitum, dum-dum.

[matthew]

Justice and retribution aren't the same thing...[M]aybe that's where we disagree, philosophically.

You're correct. That's where we disagree somewhat. I think retribution is PART of justice. That said, however, I don't think that the purpose of a criminal justice/penal system is PURELY retributive. All I mean is that in the case of the crimes we're referring to, the only appropriate retribution is death.

[AnthonyCinder]

Reanimate their corpse after you kill them, so that you can kill them again, ad infinitum, dum-dum.

Exactly.

[matthew]

"Fitting punishment" is a subjective notion that people will disagree on. This is morality we are taking about. There are no "right" and "wrong" answers...only, how high you place the bar for yourself.

Then, and I say this with all due respect, you've excluded yourself from debating with me about this topic.

[brando562]

I hate finally chiming in on threads that have gone this far, since it is very difficult to read 20 pages at work first and then easy to repeat what somebody else has said, but I've always felt that the death penalty should only be considered an option when the criminal has killed someone with ill intent (not manslaughter or legit cases of self-defense). It seems karmatic... they took away somebody elses life in cold blood, it doesn't seem unjust that theirs be taken away as well.

[The MayorofRockNRoll]

I hate finally chiming in on threads that have gone this far, since it is very difficult to read 20 pages at work first and then easy to repeat what somebody else has said, but I've always felt that the death penalty should only be considered an option when the criminal has killed someone with ill intent (not manslaughter or legit cases of self-defense). It seems karmatic... they took away somebody elses life in cold blood, it doesn't seem unjust that theirs be taken away as well.

Then that's assuming that either the state or other individuals act as agents of karma.

[Antero]

I simply don't see why, say, a convicted, remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty because another guy in another case might receive unduly.

Your reasoning is still fucked and totally backward. That remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty, exactly because it might also be handed down to a person who is innocent.

I don't personally believe a death penalty should be use in any instance...but, using your original [low] moral bar (it is ok for the state to kill people), the logic in your argument still fails.

So because of a "might", it should be outlawed?......and not have full retribution for people who are convicted of brutal, heinous murders?

You would permit grave injustices to go without full redress because of a "might"........that is more than backwards...it's senseless.

Conceiving of the execution as "redress" is your first error. Conflating retribution and redress is the second. Imagining that a murder could actually be redressed at all is the third.

And the idea that retribution is such a societal imperative that it in and of itself justifies the commission of a similarly grave crime against an innocent party is so off-base, both in terms of common morality and in the historical background of our criminal justice system, as to be incoherent.

Retribution, after all, relies on certainty for its moral justification. This is what distinguishes justice from a lynch mob.

[matthew]

I simply don't see why, say, a convicted, remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty because another guy in another case might receive unduly.

Your reasoning is still fucked and totally backward. That remorseless, brutal serial rapist/killer should not receive the death penalty, exactly because it might also be handed down to a person who is innocent.

I don't personally believe a death penalty should be use in any instance...but, using your original [low] moral bar (it is ok for the state to kill people), the logic in your argument still fails.

So because of a "might", it should be outlawed?......and not have full retribution for people who are convicted of brutal, heinous murders?

You would permit grave injustices to go without full redress because of a "might"........that is more than backwards...it's senseless.

Conceiving of the execution as "redress" is your first error. Conflating retribution and redress is the second. Imagining that a murder could actually be redressed at all is the third.

You're mincing my words and trying to turn this into a word game. I'm not going to turn this thread into the atheism thread where we spend a million pages debating the shades of meaning of a word. Let me put what I mean into plain, close-rhyming language: "You do the crime, you pay the fine."

And the idea that retribution is such a societal imperative that it in and of itself justifies the commission of a similarly grave crime against an innocent party...

???

No one's saying "execute the innocent". Who's saying that? Where are you getting this?

Like I said before......outlawing capital punishment because someone innocent "might" be wrongly executed is senseless in term of the ability to effectively administer justice which fits certain heinous crimes (AND IN HELPING TO PREVENT OTHER SUCH FUTURE CRIMES)......and quite frankly, a ludicrous point of view. Again, why not just do away with the criminal justice system itself.....someone "might" be wrongly convicted. Come on.....I mean, the guy who administers the lethal injection might take secret pleasure in doing such, but that doesn't undermine the fact that the person being executed is receiving just desert for, say, raping and murdering little children.

Look, it's not "revenge-obsessed" to have someone be punished for their crime. They're in debt and they have to repay that debt. When you commit certain types of murder, you should pay with your life. The option for capital punishment should be in place, utilized effectively and correctly, and thereby make it a REAL DETERRENCE TO FUTURE CRIMES OF THE SAME TYPE, ABOVE ALL.

[madmanmunt]

Let me put what I mean into plain, close-rhyming language: "You do the crime, you pay the fine."

Execution is like making the criminal pay a fine and then burning the money.

[krs]

And the idea that retribution is such a societal imperative that it in and of itself justifies the commission of a similarly grave crime against an innocent party...

???

No one's saying "execute the innocent". Who's saying that? Where are you getting this?

Like I said before......outlawing capital punishment because someone innocent "might" be wrongly executed is senseless in term of the ability to effectively administer justice which fits certain heinous crimes (AND IN HELPING TO PREVENT OTHER SUCH FUTURE CRIMES)......and quite frankly, a ludicrous point of view. Again, why not just do away with the criminal justice system itself.....someone "might" be wrongly convicted. Come on....

Those of us in the anti- camp, place life above liberty and property.

Are you really so callous and out of touch that you cannot understand the difference....the distinct difference between fining or jail an innocent person, and killing them??

[Model Citizen]

I think somebody may have already posted the death penalty stats somewhere back but I find it interesting that the USA sits alongside such bastions of justice as the following countries when executing their own people:

People's Republic Of China
Iran
North Korea
Yemen
Sudan
Somalia
Belarus
Botswana