RE: The Death Penalty - are you for or against it and why?
June 19, 2011 at 3:43 pm
(This post was last modified: June 19, 2011 at 3:50 pm by bozo.)
(June 19, 2011 at 6:14 am)martin02 Wrote:(June 19, 2011 at 5:11 am)Napoleon Wrote:(June 18, 2011 at 7:23 pm)Minimalist Wrote: But then an innocent person is not killed by the state.
That makes a difference how?
I'm taking it as as comment, but back to my argument; we can be wrong with absolute state of the art impunity. An appeal to getting it right doesn't go to the fallibility of the justice system, and invoking this argument begs the question of it being a double edged sword. Opponents of the death penalty have to accept the certainty of releasing the guiltiest imaginable party as much as supporters have to accept killing the wrong people. For this reason I don't think fallibility should constitute the heart of either side's argument.
Ignoring fallibility momentarily, let's take an example already cited; Timothy Evans, now accepted to have been hung for one of his neighbor John Christie's murders. Christie murdered at least four more times (not including Evans himself) before he was caught. Regarding this as a result of the penalty rater than prosecution, how do support feel about the state becoming Christie's accessory? With Evans alive in jail there was at least some possibility of his evidence leading to further investigation. For opponents, those four more murders Christie got off? Even if he'd been imprisoned, he could have killed again.
I don't accept your argument about this issue being a double-edged sword. The mental state of a murderer found not guilty after trial will be somewhat different to an innocent person found guilty of murder. Can you imagine how bad it must be to be punished for something you didn't do, especially so if it means execution? I can't.
A murderer found not guilty will be so found because the prosecution case was too weak to convince the jury of guilt. That murderer is very lucky, I doubt he/she would be so lucky if facing trial for another murder.
Many of the innocent people who suffered execution were vulnerable and some forced into confessions of guilt because they couldn't withstand the pressure of interrogation.
I maintain that the most significant reason to oppose it is that innocent people die through a miscarriage of justice.
If you don't agree, do tell what you think is the strongest argument against.
people wouldn't die if they weren't put to death. I doubt they worry about how it came to be.
A man is born to a virgin mother, lives, dies, comes alive again and then disappears into the clouds to become his Dad. How likely is that?
