The unofficial death penalty thread!

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-10-26 01:22am

Sound off here!

Give reasons.

Post by **weemadando** » 2002-10-26 01:25am

No death penalty, but certainly "term of their natural life" sentences with an option for permanent solitary.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-10-26 01:38am

I do not favor a death penalty not because I think scumbag killers dont deserve to die, but because I dont think the State should be able to carry it out.

I just do not know how to justify the possible death of an innocent person. So I rather see people put in jail for life.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2002-10-26 01:42am

I'm not really a big fan of the death penalty. More and more I think our court system sucks and that people are just incompentant/lazy/stupid/ignorant etc.. in general so I wouldn't want people being put to death unless there was absolute overwhelming evidence. Kind of like John Wayne Gaycee having the boddies of 20+ boys burried in his yard/basement. That kind of evidence and that kind of act I wouldn't have a problem with the death penalty. Other than that I'd want very clear evidence that the right person was convicted.

I also think that whatever deterent factor there was (not much) has diminished even more as the way the death penalty is carried out is made "more humane". No more electric chair, so they aren't getting fried any more. Now it's lethal injection or the gass chamber for the most part in the U.S.

Currently my state (Arizona) has a moratorium on executions because the way people were given the death penalty was determined to be unconstitutional. Judges had been doing the sentencing and now it has to be changed so a jury decides. I agree with this deciscion because the jury is not under political pressure as much as an elected judge.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-10-26 01:44am

If the evidence is overwhelming, then I support it. Room for doubt etc, I'm against it. But I think it should always be an option. There are some real monsters out there (house of horrors in UK, for example).

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-10-26 02:02am

If the evidence proves the accused is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, sure; you forfeit your right to life as soon as you violate someone else's.

Post by **Alyrium Denryle** » 2002-10-26 02:08am

In the case of a person caught being red handed(gaycee) I think that even then the death penalty is not justified

Really why not a fate worse than death? Lock them in a sensory deprivation chamber for the term of thier natural life

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-10-26 02:27am

I think it's justified if the person has been found guilty without any doubt. I mean it's a legal punishment in this country. You wanna commit a crime here you take your fucking chances.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-10-26 09:42am

The Death Pentily in its current form is a fucking joke, You commit a crime? Fuck a Bus Full of Nuns then Video Tap it and then strangle them all to death(While Video-taped), plead guilty and even an idiot lawyer can buy you between 1-8 Years of Life sitting on Death Row because there are over 200 ways of granting countiuancs and methods of extending the trial and all sorts of other net tricks that let even our Pleading Gulity Nun-Raper live for quite some time

I support the death penilty, There are simply some people who should have never existed

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-10-26 02:18pm

In some cases they damn well ought to execute the son of bitch. They need to clean up the system and speed up the process though.

starfury · Post by **starfury** » 2002-10-26 02:49pm

for those cases that there is no doubt on the guilt of the crime that death sentence should be carried out, the others we go on a case by case basis.

Cpt. Marko Ramius · Post by **Cpt. Marko Ramius** » 2002-10-26 03:15pm

Personally, I don't have a problem with the death penalty. Anyone willing to take the life of another should also be willing to forefeit theirs. But we're going about the whole thing the wrong way. People should not spend years on death row, and who gives a damn if they're killed humanely. Give them one year to appeal or find new evidence, then take them out back and shoot them in the head.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2002-10-26 05:42pm

There are a lot of 2-bit ers out there, so if we exevuted them all, we'd look like a police state. If there is overwhwelming evidence that someone has killed more that a dozen people in a creul and unusual way, they should deserve to be executed, and I'm sure people affected would be delighted to see it.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2002-10-26 07:43pm

Penal colony in Alaska. Limited and bland rations. No library. No workroom. Solitary cells. Hard labour. For the rest of your natural life.

That's for everyone in America who's now on death row.

C.S.Strowbridge · Post by **C.S.Strowbridge** » 2002-10-26 10:17pm

I think if you've commited a harsh enough crime you should be killed and cut up for spare parts.

Post by **weemadando** » 2002-10-26 10:28pm

I don't think that the death penalty is acceptable for most crimes, but what Strowbridge suggested is interesting. Maybe keeping these people "on ice" for use as organ donors could be an option...

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-10-27 01:45am

I think we should have a death penalty but the current US system needs serious revision. The states need to agree on what is a proper way to carry it out (which method; gas, firing squad, hanging, etc). The evidence needs to be overwhelming and beyond a doubt-- DNA, witnesses, etc. And there needs to be a system of limited appeals.

I'd set it up along these lines: a person accused of murder is convicted beyond a reasonable doubt by a uninimous jury vote. The guy is allowed two appeals. If all three juries agree that the guy is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt then he gets his execution immediately after the third jury makes it pronouncements.

However, if out of this entire process there is just one juror that votes against the death penalty then the sentence is commuted to life in prison with no possibility of parole. He also doesn't get TVs, DVDs, all that other cuddly-wuddly stuff that makes prison an alternative to homelessness.

Other possibilities might be that the guy gets all kinds of amenities and luxuries if he willingly volunteers himself for human-phase testing for new pharmaceuticals. And I think that prisoners that die in custody for whatever reason should be available for organ harvest (provided the organs are healthy, of course, and as long as the prisoner did not have a religious background the expressly forbids it).

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-10-27 01:48am

I like your ideas, Coyote.

Evil Sadistic Bastard · Post by **Evil Sadistic Bastard** » 2002-10-27 02:47am

Kill the kriminals. If you deprive someone of his life you have forfeited the rights to your own.

But like Coyote said, only if the three juries agree.

I still think the problem is balancing between a need for an effective deterrent and the need for justice to be done. If we execute all guilty people out of hand, then we have the possibility that a clever man will frame a mark and let the state kill the mark for him. Yet if we show leniency then the deterrent effect is largely nullified - if you are kept in prison, safe from retribution, why should you hesitate to murder someone powerful?

Ultimately, I must favour the death penalty. However, I would prefer that we work towards a society where it will no longer be necessary.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2002-10-27 04:02am

C.S.Strowbridge wrote:I think if you've commited a harsh enough crime you should be killed and cut up for spare parts.

I read a short story once that touched on this idea. Basically, it started out as you suggested and then demand grew to the point that people who put other's lives at rise, to the equivalent of speeding in your car, would recieve the slice & dice sentence. The story is set way in the future and the government of Earth is a bit extreme, although I could see the US progressing on a similar track.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2002-10-27 11:15am

Tsyroc wrote:
C.S.Strowbridge wrote:I think if you've commited a harsh enough crime you should be killed and cut up for spare parts.
I read a short story once that touched on this idea. Basically, it started out as you suggested and then demand grew to the point that people who put other's lives at rise, to the equivalent of speeding in your car, would recieve the slice & dice sentence. The story is set way in the future and the government of Earth is a bit extreme, although I could see the US progressing on a similar track.

Isn't that a slippery slope fallacy? Just because it could happen if we move to a more extreme punishment doesn't mean that we will. Though the U.S. can be pretty fucked up.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-10-27 11:21am

I personally don't take to the death penalty. It's against my moral standards...it may seem weird coming from me, I know, especially since I've shown such fascination with decapitations and all...but I really don't think that it is right to have the death penalty. In all reality, the people killing the killer are bringing themselves to the same level as the killer himself. But what about life in prison? What about the emotional and mental damage there? you may ask. My response is this: You will say to kill him and put him out of his misewry. That's what you say about a horse or a dog or a cat that needs to be put down. Are other human beings to be reduced to the level of a common household pet?

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2002-10-27 11:34am

What happens when we kill someone that turns out to be innocent.

We keep hearing overwhelming evidence, but that is an objective level.

What is overwhelming to us on this board might not be so, for an all white jury in the south trying a black man for raping a rich white socialite.

Like I said, I dont think someone like the McVeigh should not be killed, I just do not think the state should do it. I also do not think the death penalty is a deterent to anyone. Most crimes are by demented folks or crimes of passion.

What I would like to see is more states adopt a three strikes and you are out policy like here in CA. If you are a career criminal lets face it, thats all you are gonna be.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-10-27 11:42am

I would support the death penalty if the victim's family asks for it, and there is physical evidence. Eyewitness testimony is no damned good, especially in the Deep South where any black man in the area of a killing is pretty much bound to be convicted if they can find just one racist asshole to say he saw him there (and since your average racist think all blacks look the same, this won't be hard to do). Why do you think Newsweek's article on criminals unjustly accused and exonerated by DNA was 90% black guys in the Deep South?

But once you have objective evidence (not just eyewitness testimony or circumstantials) that a man is a murderer, then what?

Some people say the death penalty is immoral. It is. But so is killing in wartime, yet we don't condemn it. I think that the judgement of death or life should be up to the victims' families, not to us. They must live the rest of their lives with a hole in their hearts and lives. They, not ivory-tower "moralists", should have the right to decide. And if they decide that closure and vengeance are more important than morality, so be it. I believe they should have that right, and if one of my sons were murdered by some psychopath, I would probably want the fucker dead too.

Morality is an ideal, but so is justice. The two are not identical; they occasionally clash, and the death penalty is one of those areas where they do.

Cpt_Frank · Post by **Cpt_Frank** » 2002-10-27 12:01pm

And if they decide that closure and vengeance are more important than morality, so be it.

so basically what you're saying is that the victim's family and friends should assume responsibility for the death of the murderer?
hmm. psychologically interesting concept.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

The unofficial death penalty thread!

Death Penalty?

The unofficial death penalty thread!