Death penalty: just cause?

How many innocent people executed is acceptable to have a death penalty

  • 1 out of 1,000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 out of 1,000,000

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1 out of 100

    Votes: 2 33.3%
  • None, Abolish it

    Votes: 4 66.7%

  • Total voters
    6

zzzz

Just a regular American
Jul 24, 2010
3,080
530
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Yountsville
John Grisham's new book is out The Confession, where a innocnet man is on death row days before being executed. Sounds like another legal thriller. Just brought to my mind the possibility of people being executed who were not guilty. Yes the percentage is very small and there are many checks in the system, yet any system has its faults and cracks. My question is, is it worth the life of one innocent human being?
 
The death penalty is the easy way out.

But before I declare my favour of abolition, allow me to outline my preferred punishment for pre-meditated murder.

I believe that punishment should, when guilt is proven beyond all doubt, be life without parole. Prisoners convicted of pre-meditated, first degree murder, should be incarcerated in Supermax style prisons, modelled on ADX Florence, under a federal mandate. In short, they would spend the rest of their natural lives in a living tomb.

Given the choice between death and rotting in a soundproofed room with minimal sunlight and zero chance of escape for the rest of my life, I would choose death every time. If I were sentenced to life in a Supermax facility; I would start screaming hysterically in terror. As I imagine everyone else on this board would. And there's no need for transparent bravado. Considering you'd be - supposedly - casually brushing off lifelong sensory deprevation.

The U.K is still considering building two maximum security prisons (Titan Catagory) modelled on the Supermax ethos on the Western Isles of Scotland that would accomadate this sort of draconian custodial sentence. I fully support the project, as the concept terrifies me.
 
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Just brought to my mind the possibility of people being executed who were not guilty.

Collateral damage.

I am willing to accept this fact in order to have a safer society.

Would you stand by this conviction if it were your child who was needlessly executed?

Something tells me that you wouldn't.

My way allows a prisoner to be released if found not guilty on appeal, as well as providing a stiff deterrent to serious crime.
 
I oppose the death penalty.

The only just death penalty would be immediate and without prelude. As this is impossible, we must settle for life in prison at hard labor without possibility of parole.
 
Collateral damage.

I am willing to accept this fact in order to have a safer society.

Would you stand by this conviction if it were your child who was needlessly executed?

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!

I don't believe you.

I can't imagine a loving parent writing-off one of their children so easily. Can you imagine visiting he or she in their final weeks. Looking them in the eyes as he or she silently begs you to aid them in their escape, knowing that they're innocent.

Imagine how you would feel if later evidence proved their innocence. You would've given-up without a fight. You would be an accessory in the avoidable destruction of your own child.

That would be a burden I would avoid at all costs.
 
Would you stand by this conviction if it were your child who was needlessly executed?

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!

I don't believe you.

I can't imagine a loving parent writing-off one of their children so easily. Can you imagine visiting he or she in their final weeks. Looking them in the eyes as he or she silently begs you to aid them in their escape, knowing that they're innocent.

Imagine how you would feel if later evidence proved their innocence. You would've given-up without a fight. You would be an accessory in the avoidable destruction of your own child.

That would be a burden I would avoid at all costs.

I doubt that they would consider executing a 5 year old.
 
ONE HUNDRED PERCENT!

I don't believe you.

I can't imagine a loving parent writing-off one of their children so easily. Can you imagine visiting he or she in their final weeks. Looking them in the eyes as he or she silently begs you to aid them in their escape, knowing that they're innocent.

Imagine how you would feel if later evidence proved their innocence. You would've given-up without a fight. You would be an accessory in the avoidable destruction of your own child.

That would be a burden I would avoid at all costs.

I doubt that they would consider executing a 5 year old.

Don't dodge the issue. Anyway, age is irrelevant when it comes to losing a child. If your son was 18, and he claimed he was innocent of a crime that's punishable by death, would you ignore his pleading and not oppose the judge passing sentence?

Imagine how you would feel if a few years after the grief of burying your son had passed, it was proved he was innocent all along. Your 'loss' would then, I imagine, seem very much like abandonment.

With a life sentence behind bars, at least you can release them if their sentence has been a miscarriage of justice.

Think about it.
 
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Just brought to my mind the possibility of people being executed who were not guilty.

Collateral damage.

I am willing to accept this fact in order to have a safer society.

Then volunteer to take the place of the innocent person that is to be executed. You would be doing that person and their family a favor, and SOCIETY.

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Yet does the death penalty have any effect on criminal activity? I don't think it really plays into the thinking process of lets say someone who commits murder or a robbery because they do not expect to be caught in the first place. So as a deterrent I think it is a failure. Therefore the only reason behind having a death penalty is punishment.

As you say lifetime isolation is one avenue. To me a punishment that would be far more worse would be taking someones eyesight and hearing. Not being able to hear and see is a fate worse than death.
 
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Before you whinning liberal do-gooders start your "abolish the death penalty rant" keep in mind that you don't normally find the communities best and brightest in the situation of being wondered about on death row.
 

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