The DEATH Penalty

[Chad32]

I like to watch Secular Talk. http://www.youtube.com/user/SecularTalk

In a couple of videos, the guy mentioned the death penalty is unconstitutional because it breaks the eighth amendment, which protects against cruel and unusual punishment. Personally I disagree. Since when is people killing each other unusual? He says most countries don't have the death penalty anymore, but I don't think that matters much. He also says it's cruel, but I think there are multiple ways you can kill someone without causing pain, or at least a lot of drawn out pain. Overdose on morphine, or really just blow their brains out with a high powered rifle. Something like breaking the neck or cutting off the head actually wouldn't be good, because an intact brain can still function afterwards. That's probably one reason why victims of the guillotine had bags over their heads first.

Now some may say that criminals should suffer, and don't deserve painless deaths, but we good citizens should be above that. I do believe that rehabilitation should be the first course of action, but I also believe there are some people that just can't be rehabilitated. Anyone who gets locked up and never released should really be put down.

There is a problem with accidentally killing innocent people. I don't think the death penalty should be used lightly, but I don't think it should be abolished either. Obviously we have a ton of people in our prisons, and I used to think well if we start actually killing the worst ones, there would be more room. That was a long time ago, before I realized that there are a lot of people in prison for non violent crimes. No one should be imprisoned for non violent crimes. That may be a different topic, but it just came to mind as I was posting.

Mainly I'm just bothered that the secular talk guy said the death penalty is cruel and unusual by definition, which I don't on either case.

[EgoRaptor]

I agree with my hero Citizen Sade on the death penalty.

The law which attempts a man's life [capital punishment] is impractical, unjust, inadmissible. It has never repressed crime—for a second crime is every day committed at the foot of the scaffold.

To kill a man in a paroxysm of passion is understandable, but to have him killed by someone else after calm and serious meditation and on the pretext of duty honourably discharged is incomprehensible.

[Chad32]

I've heard the arguments that it doesn't repress crime, and that it doesn't bring families back. I mean, who ever thought it would bring your loved ones back? As for repressing crimes, I can only say that the death penalty guarantees that the one killed will never commit what heinous crime led to the death penalty. I'm not sure it's hard to comprehend that a sociopath literally does not have the ability to empathize with other people, and if he or she insists on killing people instead of compromising, then no amount of counseling is going to help.

[Ryantology]

The deliberate ending of a life against the will of the victim is cruel and unusual punishment, as I see things.

Revenge ≠ Justice.

[Chad32]

I think you'll have to elaborate more than that. The death sentence does not equal revenge, especially if you're trying for one that doesn't involve pain.

[Ryantology]

The death sentence does not equal revenge, especially if you're trying for one that doesn't involve pain.

I happen to disagree. Taking a life for a life taken still amounts to revenge, even if the revenge is more humane than the original crime. The proper kind of imprisonment would accomplish the task of eliminating a person as a threat without producing another corpse.

[Chad32]

I wouldn't have someone killed just for killing one person. Chances are, that person could be rehabilitated, especially given the context of the crime. I just see life imprisonment as worse. Maybe occasionally they'll find out the person is innocent, but if they spend 20 or 30 years or more in prison, they won't really have much life left. Especially if they've been accused of something really horrible and the other inmates make their prison life hell. It can honestly be a crueler fate.

[ThePinsir]

As long as the death penalty exists, innocent people will be executed. That, imo, should be the end of it. Except maybe in cases where someone confesses..

[Angrboda]

I'm not even sure I know what the phrase "cruel and unusual by definition" would even mean. There are codifications of the concept in statute and at common law, but all these are based on general presentiment and abstruse theories of justice. I'm not aware of any definitive overriding definition of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Ultimately, I think that it is a silly argument to be made as there are far more effective objections to be made to capital punishment — the cost, the lack of deterrent effect, irreversible harm, the morality of retribution as a justification for punishment — that the argument that capital punishment is, by its nature, inhumane, need never be made.

[Chad32]

As long as the death penalty exists, innocent people will be executed. That, imo, should be the end of it. Except maybe in cases where someone confesses..

We don't get rid of life sentences, despite the fact that innocent people could spend the rest of their lives in prison.