Death Penalty

[Ravenshire]

This happens every time. I need to stop replying to death penalty topics, because there's always someone vehemently against my views.

(emphasis is mine)

Maybe that should tell you something.

[Chad32]

I don't see myself changing that stance, though. There's always some story about someone doing something that you didn't think a member of the same species was capable of doing. Imprisonment isn't enough, unless you keep them completely isolated for anyone, and even the guy who delivers the food would still be in danger unless they were feeding him intravenously from another room.

I have changed some views over the course of my life, but I'm not going as far as supporting the complete abolishment of the death penalty.

[bennyboy]

Nobody has mentioned money yet.

Why should the state feel compelled to support a mass murderer for maybe 50 or 60 years, at a cost of many hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars, when a blindfold and $10 worth of bullets could eliminate the problem in about 10 seconds?

The appellate process in America, de jure, means that the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison, given the average number of years on Death Row.

That's right.  But it is not execution itself that's expensive.  I can do that for the price of a kitchen knife, if necessary. And consider the implications of this: that if someone is NOT on death row, they're not going to get the same appeals, even though life in prison is arguably as bad a punishment as execution. So maybe the real issue isn't the nature of the penalty, but the horrible inefficiency of the justice system in the US.

[AFTT47]

We really are on totally different wavelengths here.

This happens every time. I need to stop replying to death penalty topics, because there's always someone vehemently against my views.

You're stuck being ruled by your "heart" rather than your "head." That revenge thing is a pretty strong brain wiring so you're not alone. I remember when I was a kid I would get particularly frustrated when I hurt myself with an inanimate object - like banging my head into the edge of a cabinet door. It pissed me off because it did no good to hit the door back. It wouldn't feel it, lol. There was no revenge to be had.

I grew out of it though. I'm glad because there is more peace when you drop that need. The edge of a cabinet door can still make my head ache but it can't hurt me psychologically any more. It no longer has power over me in that way. I feel no need to hurt back. It's a better way to live.

[Regina]

I think life in prison is a better punishment anyway.

Death is too easy, especially done humanely. You don't know you're dead, but you do know you're rotting away, forgotten, in a cell for the remaining time you have on this planet. Meanwhile the rest of the world enjoys life outside while you rot and you're missing out.

[Chad32]

I would think if I was being rules by emotions, I'd insist on the eye for an eye mentality. Which I don't. It's good you don't take your anger out on inanimate objects anymore. property can get messed up that way. Though ironically jostling an old TV can actually help when it's not working right.

[AFTT47]

I would think if I was being rules by emotions, I'd insist on the eye for an eye mentality. Which I don't. It's good you don't take your anger out on inanimate objects anymore. property can get messed up that way. Though ironically jostling an old TV can actually help when it's not working right.

It made me some money when I was a teenager. I was studying electronics and one of my father's co-workers paid me to fix his TV. This was back in the day (the 70s) when TVs had a shitload of adjustments that people who didn't know what they were doing could massively fuck up. He screwed up an adjustment called dynamic convergence which was something that made sure the red electron beam hit the red phosphors and the same with the blue and the green. I got that all straightened out and made some money. A few months later, there was some problem and it pissed the guy off so much that he pulled off the back of the TV and ripped wires out of the thing. It turned out to be station difficulty which caused the problem - not the TV. There were problems with the TV now though and he just bought a new one.

[Ravenshire]

The appellate process in America, de jure, means that the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison, given the average number of years on Death Row.

That's right.  But it is not execution itself that's expensive.  I can do that for the price of a kitchen knife, if necessary.  And consider the implications of this: that if someone is NOT on death row, they're not going to get the same appeals, even though life in prison is arguably as bad a punishment as execution.  So maybe the real issue isn't the nature of the penalty, but the horrible inefficiency of the justice system in the US.

As far as I know, the only appeals that death row inmates get that other convicts don't, are appeals [i]directly related to the execution.[i]

[Thumpalumpacus]

The appellate process in America, de jure, means that the death penalty is more expensive than life in prison, given the average number of years on Death Row.

That's right.  But it is not execution itself that's expensive.  I can do that for the price of a kitchen knife, if necessary.  And consider the implications of this: that if someone is NOT on death row, they're not going to get the same appeals, even though life in prison is arguably as bad a punishment as execution.  So maybe the real issue isn't the nature of the penalty, but the horrible inefficiency of the justice system in the US.

Ah, but making the death penalty more efficient does have a price, and it's a fearsome one: trust in the justice system. After all, in order to save the money spent on appeals, you'll have to reduce them dramatically. It stands to reason at that point that more innocents will be executed. And faith in America's criminal justice system is already wavering, particularly amongst minorities (upon whom the death penalty tends to fall disproportionately anyway). The reason that it is expensive, in the end, is because if the state is going to wield such a terrible sentence, it has every obligation to ensure that it is killing the right person.

That it is unfair for lifers to not have the same appeals ignores the fact that they are alive to see that the true facts of the case can come to light. The DP convict gets those appeals precisely because of the irrevocable nature of the punishment.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I would think if I was being rules by emotions, I'd insist on the eye for an eye mentality. Which I don't.

What is the death penalty but eye-for-eye treatment in the case of murder?