Do You Think Capital Punishment Is Right?
Question by missy121: Do you think capital punishment is right?
Why or why not? And what do you think of the DC sniper being executed in November?
Best answer:
Answer by patchouli4279
If a jury of your peers whom unanimously agree that you are guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt and that your actions are irredeemable in the eyes of society. Then yes, I do support capital punishment.
Add your own answer in the comments!
Chris Brown Checks Out Of Rehab – Singer Chris Brown has left a rehab center he checked into after his October assault arrest in Washington, D.C., but he’ll continue treatment on an outpatien…
Tags: chris brown, rehab center
I have mixed feelings, but on balance, I would prefer to end capital punishment. I definitely think some states should ‘fix’ their system because way to many folks have made it to death row, and been quite close to execution, and found to be innocent. Some say that shows the system is working, but if the system is BARELY working, how many times has it failed when you haven’t noticed?
I am not convinced that the death penalty has much deterrent effect. Liberals love to say the deterrent has been disproven, but those studies contrasted states with vs those without, and there are WAY more policies and cultural differences at work than just capital punishment. I remember reading about a study that instead compared states where the legality of capital punishment changed and comparing the before & after. Still not perfect methodology, but certainly better. My vague memory is that it was more favorable to the death penalty lobby, but I can’t recall specifics.
But that isn’t central to my thinking anyway. Given that I am a libertarian and am distrustful both of government’s motives and competence, I cannot accept giving the government the power to END ME. I am not a conspiratorial person, but DA’s try to withhold exonerating evidence from juries and defense counsels at times. it’s illegal and they can get disbarred for it, but it still happens. When such errors occur, is it not prefereable that Life in Prison was the mistake since it can be undone (at least partly)?
I think the capital punishment advocate would say that you’re trusting the JURY OF YOUR PEERS, not the government. See above re: prosecutors. The fact is that a jury only sees part of the picture and is FAR from infallible even if they are interested in justice. See the juries from the south during Jim Crow when KKK murderers were let off (jury nullification).
So I cannot entrust a flawed government with the ultimate punishment.
No. I live in Texas, and I supported capital punishment for a long time, but the more I learned about it, the more I came to oppose it. In the end, several factors changed my mind:
1. By far the most compelling is this: Sometimes the legal system gets it wrong. In the last 35 years in the U.S., over 130 people have been released from death row because they were exonerated by DNA and other evidence. These are ALL people who were found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Unfortunately, DNA evidence is not available in most homicide cases. So, as long as the death penalty is in place, you are pretty much GUARANTEED to occasionally execute an innocent person.
Really, that should be reason enough for most people to oppose it, but there are many others:
2. Cost: Because of higher pre-trial expenses, longer trials, jury sequestration, extra expenses associated with prosecuting & defending a DP case, and the appeals process (which is necessary – see reason #1), it costs taxpayers MUCH more to execute prisoners than to imprison them for life. This disparity becomes even greater when you consider the time value of money – most of the costs of capital punishment are up-front, occurring before and during the trial itself, whereas most of the costs of life imprisonment are spread over the term of incarceration (usually 30-40 years).
3. It is not a deterrent. In fact, violent crime rates are consistently HIGHER in death penalty jurisdictions. This may seem counterintuitive, and there are many theories about why this is (Ted Bundy craved the publicity, so he chose Florida – the most active execution state at the time – to carry out his final murder spree). It is probably due, at least in part, to the high cost (see #2) – every extra dollar spent on capital punishment is one that’s NOT going to police departments, drug treatment programs, education, and other government services that help prevent crime. Personally, I think it also has to do with the hypocrisy of taking a stand against murder…by killing people. The government fosters a culture of violence by saying, ‘do as I say, not as I do.’
4. It is inconsistently and arbitrarily applied. Factors that should be irrelevant (geography, race of the victim, poor representation, etc.) are all too often the determining factors in whether someone gets death versus life in prison.
5. There’s also an argument to be made that death is too good for the worst criminals. Let them wake up and go to bed every day of their lives in a prison cell, and think about the freedom they DON’T have, until they rot of old age. When Ted Bundy was finally arrested in 1978, he told the police officer, “I wish you had killed me.” Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (the architect of the 9/11 attacks) would love nothing better than to be put to death. In his words, “I have been looking to be a martyr [for a] long time.”
6. Most governments are supposed to be secular, but for those who invoke Christian law in this debate, you can find arguments both for AND against the death penalty in the Bible. The New Testament (starring Jesus) is primarily ANTI-death penalty. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus praises mercy (Matthew 5:7) and rejects “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38-39). James 4:12 says that GOD is the only one who can take a life in the name of justice. In John 8:7, Jesus himself says, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”