Death Penalty

[Just A Man]

I see in the news some states are considering doing away with the death penalty due to the costs involved. It seems it's cheaper to keep someone in prison for the remainder of their life. What a situation we have worked ourselves into. The statement by itself smacks of lunacy.

Why is it so expensive to put a convicted killer to death as his punishment for taking innocent lives?

It's the lawyers, judges and the bleeding heart liberals. Some people can't handle the idea of killing a killer, but they ignore the victims. The lawyers keep the appeals ongoing to line their pockets. Lawyers charge by the hour to represent the human predator and appeal after appeal insures them of a continuous paycheck paid by us hard working, law abiding taxpayers. We also pay for the prosecutors to continue returning to court to present the case against the killers. The judges have no backbone, think they're being fair, ignoring the victims.

Liberals who support killers may be winning. Those who care more for money than justice may be winning.

 

[strollingbones]

Liberals who support killers may be winning. Those who care more for money than justice may be winning.


no discussion is needed here...you have made up your mind and labeled others before allowing any imput....enjoy your limited and narrow mind

 

[Amanda]

I think we need to remove predators from the population, but I don't think the state should be in the business of killing people. I don't agree with the endless appeals either. Give them 1 trial, 1 appeal, then lock them up - forever. I'm sure it would be cheaper to take 'em out back knock their head in with a shovel, but I think if we're going to assume the moral responsibility to police society we should draw the line at a place where we are better than those we're trying to punish. And by that I mean, we sorta lose the moral high ground when we too are killers.

 

[sealybobo]

I see in the news some states are considering doing away with the death penalty due to the costs involved. It seems it's cheaper to keep someone in prison for the remainder of their life. What a situation we have worked ourselves into. The statement by itself smacks of lunacy.

Why is it so expensive to put a convicted killer to death as his punishment for taking innocent lives?

It's the lawyers, judges and the bleeding heart liberals. Some people can't handle the idea of killing a killer, but they ignore the victims. The lawyers keep the appeals ongoing to line their pockets. Lawyers charge by the hour to represent the human predator and appeal after appeal insures them of a continuous paycheck paid by us hard working, law abiding taxpayers. We also pay for the prosecutors to continue returning to court to present the case against the killers. The judges have no backbone, think they're being fair, ignoring the victims.

Liberals who support killers may be winning. Those who care more for money than justice may be winning.

The Catholic church is against the death penalty and abortion. How come Norte Dame let Bush the executioner speak but they have a problem with pro choice obama speaking?

To the catholic church, both are equally wrong.

 

[Agnapostate]

The death penalty should not be used for murderers of one because it then strips such a person of an incentive against committing additional murders, providing a perverse motivation to commit additional murders and violently resist attempts at capture by police.

 

[Just A Man]

Human predators should not be allowed to breath the air shared by law-abiding people. It's our government's job to protect the people and thus they should be doing the organized killing as humanely as possible. I don't want human predators to suffer, I want a swift death for them and then flush them. I ain't worrying about someone saying I'm no better than the human predators if I want the death penalty, I want the bad guys to know if they kill an innocent person then they lose their life. It ain't complicated although people who have trouble making tough decisions may not want the death penalty, I understand that. I respect all opinions when well stated, that's what we do here, share opinions.

 

[Agnapostate]

Human predators should not be allowed to breath the air shared by law-abiding people. It's our government's job to protect the people and thus they should be doing the organized killing as humanely as possible. I don't want human predators to suffer, I want a swift death for them and then flush them. I ain't worrying about someone saying I'm no better than the human predators if I want the death penalty, I want the bad guys to know if they kill an innocent person then they lose their life. It ain't complicated although people who have trouble making tough decisions may not want the death penalty, I understand that. I respect all opinions when well stated, that's what we do here, share opinions.

The problem involved is that such a policy is irrational. There will be no deterrence motivation for mass murderers if an individual is executed after a single murder, and it will thus also serve as an incentive for such persons to violently resist police attempts to capture them, since they'll be killed no matter what the outcome.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

 

[Agnapostate]

It's also necessary to consider the irrational "emotional" approach that many Americans take in consideration of the death penalty rather than a more rational and objective one. For instance, there is much to be derived from Garland's Peculiar Forms of American Capital Punishment:

[T]oday's death penalty is a negative mirror image of a public torture lynching—an inverse institution, a disavowal, calculated to resist and deny any such association. But substantively, many of the same social forces that previously prompted lynchings nowadays prompt capital punishment; many of the same social functions performed by lynching then are performed by capital punishment now; and much the same political structures that permitted lynchings then, enable capital punishment now.

The nature of the application of the death penalty having a "lynch mob mentality" is obviously a troubling facet of its usage.

 

[KittenKoder]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

In the past, true, but now there are many cases that are almost 100% without doubt (science calls it 99.999999999~%) due to advances in evidence collection. In such cases when there is no doubt that rehabilitation is not an option, there is little choice and no reason to keep them around.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

In the past, true, but now there are many cases that are almost 100% without doubt (science calls it 99.999999999~%) due to advances in evidence collection. In such cases when there is no doubt that rehabilitation is not an option, there is little choice and no reason to keep them around.

I doubt very seriously that we can ever be 100% sure. That being said, I disagree with there being "no reason to keep them around." For starters, as stated in the first post, it cost more to murder these people than it does to incarcerate them for the rest of their lives. Secondly, extracting vengeance on behalf of the victim does absolutely no good to the victim. We wouldn't allow the victim or the victim's family to extract their own personal vengeance so what makes it any different for the state to do it?

 

[Diuretic]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

In the past, true, but now there are many cases that are almost 100% without doubt (science calls it 99.999999999~%) due to advances in evidence collection. In such cases when there is no doubt that rehabilitation is not an option, there is little choice and no reason to keep them around.

Nope. Conviction is always on the basis of probability, not certainty. Until the justice system operates on the basis of certainty of guilt rather than probability of guilt, it's best not to execute anyone.

 

[elvis]

I see in the news some states are considering doing away with the death penalty due to the costs involved. It seems it's cheaper to keep someone in prison for the remainder of their life. What a situation we have worked ourselves into. The statement by itself smacks of lunacy.

Why is it so expensive to put a convicted killer to death as his punishment for taking innocent lives?

It's the lawyers, judges and the bleeding heart liberals. Some people can't handle the idea of killing a killer, but they ignore the victims. The lawyers keep the appeals ongoing to line their pockets. Lawyers charge by the hour to represent the human predator and appeal after appeal insures them of a continuous paycheck paid by us hard working, law abiding taxpayers. We also pay for the prosecutors to continue returning to court to present the case against the killers. The judges have no backbone, think they're being fair, ignoring the victims.

Liberals who support killers may be winning. Those who care more for money than justice may be winning.

You answered your own question. I believe in the death penalty in principle, but in practice? When you have such a great number of people on death row being set free because more evidence comes forward, that's a problem. There is no room for mistakes when you're talking about someone's life. Now that they have DNA testing, I wouldn't think there would be such doubt. But I don't know.

 

[alan1]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

 

[elvis]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

Manson never killed anyone. He was in fact eligible for parole in 1978.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

Charles Manson will never be paroled, as the man has clearly never repented or been proven innocent in any of the crimes he committed.

 

[elvis]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

Charles Manson will never be paroled, as the man has clearly never repented or been proven innocent in any of the crimes he committed.

What crime did he commit?

 

[alan1]

State sanctioned murder remains murder, and too many innocent people have been killed by the state after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

Charles Manson will never be paroled, as the man has clearly never repented or been proven innocent in any of the crimes he committed.

He doesn't have to be proven innocent to get paroled.
He's been before a parole board more than once.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

Charles Manson will never be paroled, as the man has clearly never repented or been proven innocent in any of the crimes he committed.

What crime did he commit?

Conspiracy to commit murder I believe is what he was charged with.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

If Charles Manson ever gets paroled, I hope he moves to your neighborhood and not mine.

Charles Manson will never be paroled, as the man has clearly never repented or been proven innocent in any of the crimes he committed.

He doesn't have to be proven innocent to get paroled.
He's been before a parole board more than once.

Yes, and he's been denied every time, because he is still deemed a threat to society.