Do You Support the Death Penalty?

[PoliticalChic]

Do you support the death penalty?

 

[Sunni Man]

Yes 100%

 

[Skull Pilot]

The only issue I have with it is that too many innocent people have been victims of capital punishment.

DNA evidence exonerates people almost daily so it is no stretch to say that many of those people executed were innocent.

I think that the death penalty is warranted only if no doubt exists none zero zip nada

If life without parole actually meant life without parole, I'd be fine with abolishing capital punishment.

 

[strollingbones]

not the way its applied in the us...too many times its used to make one confess....confess and we will take the death penalty off the table etc....at this time, they are still releasing innocent men from jail...so lets hold off on the death penalty till its applied justly....now for someone like john cuey, an admitted child killer...i have zero problems with the quick application of the death penalty...when without a doubt they are guilty of harming an innocent..be it an adult or child...when they are admitted killers they need to be removed from society..but for now...i voted no.

 

[Walt]

Yes. When there is absolutly no doubt as to the persons guilt. There are crimes so heinous it should not only be appied, but applied quickly.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yes 100%

Just curious, why you answered on the thread, but didn't participate in the poll?

There are few absolutes in this life. The justice system is in no way perfect, but life sentences for many felons, just doesn't cut it for me.

 

[Diuretic]

No, the justice system is all too fallible even where it's scrupulously honest. Of course innocent people have been put to death in various jurisdictions around the world that had/have the death penalty.

 

[catzmeow]

I support it with the caveat that it be administered swiftly, and only in cases where DNA evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Unfortunately, neither of those is the reality in the U.S. right now. It is currently more expensive to kill an inmate than to incarcerate him/her permanently. Based on that scenario, I prefer life with no opportunity for parole.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

I've always been a little ambivalent about the Death Penalty. On one hand, there are crimes in which, well, there's no going back from, where the criminal has pretty much set himself too far apart from humanity to ever return. But on the other, to accept the power of the state to murder is pretty vile, and it's been proven that it has no real deterrence effect. Then you have to think, is the execution of every "bad" person on the planet worth even the execution of ONE innocent? = \

 

[eots]

I would but the state has clearly screwed up to many times and its not the type of thing that can have a margin of error... sadly I have to revoke theIr license to kill...

 

[CrimsonWhite]

I personally do not support it. It goes to my faith. "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." However as an attorney, if I were to prosecute a case that merited it, I would seek the death penalty. Will of the people outweighs my personal feelings on the subject.

 

[Cecilie1200]

The only issue I have with it is that too many innocent people have been victims of capital punishment.

DNA evidence exonerates people almost daily so it is no stretch to say that many of those people executed were innocent.

I think that the death penalty is warranted only if no doubt exists none zero zip nada

If life without parole actually meant life without parole, I'd be fine with abolishing capital punishment.

I'm curious. Which innocent people have been victims of capital punishment?

DNA evidence doesn't "exonerate people almost daily". Spare us the hyperbole. It has been used in some cases, but unless I'm badly misremembering, all the people in those cases were alive.

The death penalty IS used when there's no doubt. You don't really think the people on death row are the sum total of the convicted murderers in our prisons, do you? Judges and juries tend not to like death sentences without overwhelming conviction.

Hell, I know of a guy in the state prison here who killed his wife with an axe and claimed it was self-defense. The jury didn't buy it, since he had trouble explaining why self-defense required him to hack off her arms after she was dead. He STILL only got life. (By the way, when the phrase "without parole" is appended to a sentence, that IS exactly what it means. It's only when that phrase is left off that "life" ends up meaning "fifteen years or so".)

 

[Cecilie1200]

No, the justice system is all too fallible even where it's scrupulously honest. Of course innocent people have been put to death in various jurisdictions around the world that had/have the death penalty.

Of course, no one seems able to name any in this country, which happens to be the only one I'm personally concerned about.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I've always been a little ambivalent about the Death Penalty. On one hand, there are crimes in which, well, there's no going back from, where the criminal has pretty much set himself too far apart from humanity to ever return. But on the other, to accept the power of the state to murder is pretty vile, and it's been proven that it has no real deterrence effect. Then you have to think, is the execution of every "bad" person on the planet worth even the execution of ONE innocent? = \

It's been proven that it's no deterrent? Proven by whom? When?

It has been reported, most notably by the New York Times, that a comparison of murder rates in 1998 in states with and without the death penalty showed that "10 of the 12 states without capital punishment have homicide rates below the national average . . . while half the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above the national average."

Unfortunately, a simple comparison like this tells us nothing. The states without the death penalty had always had relatively low murder rates for factors unrelated to the death penalty. Even when the death penalty was suspended nationwide by the US Supreme Court during the years from 1968 to 1976, those states still had lower averages than most other states.

The important statistic to consider is that those states which reinstituted the death penalty saw a 38% larger drop in their murder rates.

Murder rates skyrocketed during the time that the death penalty was suspended in the US. A chart of murder rates over the years versus number of executions shows that it more than doubled during those years, and began gradually dropping at the same time that the number of executions gradually increased.

A study conducted by Isaac Ehrlich of the University of Chicago in the late 1970s showed that each execution deterred as many as twenty to twenty-four murders. The vast majority of recent research confirms this effect. Each execution saved the lives of 50 to 18 potential murder victims, according to this research, and some studies put the numbers higher. John Lott, the economist, is an example of one such researcher. (Yes, I can provide names and publications for the studies, if you want.)

 

[Cecilie1200]

I personally do not support it. It goes to my faith. "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord." However as an attorney, if I were to prosecute a case that merited it, I would seek the death penalty. Will of the people outweighs my personal feelings on the subject.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't God also very clearly lay down the death penalty as the punishment for specific crimes in the Old Testament? So "vengeance is mine" doesn't appear to have been a society-wide restriction, but an individual one.

 

[sky dancer]

I don't support the death penalty. It's expensive. It does not serve as a deterrent. It splits victim's families further apart who are already suffering from loss. It is inappropriate for a civilized society. Innocent people have been executed. The death penalty is unevenly applied, there is a racist component to execution.

As a Buddhist, I do not support the death penalty.

 

[Sunni Man]

It does not serve as a deterrent. It splits victim's families further apart who are already suffering from loss.

It would unit a family in seeing the murderer pay the ultimate penalty.

 

[Sunni Man]

As a Buddhist, I do not support the death penalty.

Good to hear.

You would be kick off a jury in a death penalty case.

 

[sky dancer]

Good to hear.

You would be kick off a jury in a death penalty case.

Yes. I certainly hope so.

 

[sky dancer]

It would unit a family in seeing the murderer pay the ultimate penalty.

No. It does not unite a family. It often divides a family. We are split as Americans on whether we support the death penalty or not--even when we are families of crime victims.