The death penalty is always wrong, for several reasons:
1. If it is not moral for an individual to take the life of a criminal, it can never be moral for the State to do so.
2. Given the number of death sentences commuted or vacated since the advent of DNA testing, there is never 100% certainty that the proper person is being executed.
3. The death penalty is not and never has been a deterrent to crime.
4. Corollary to #3: If someone commits a capital crime and isn't apprehended immediately, there is nothing to stop them from repeating the crime (you can only kill them once).
5. The whole point of punishing criminals (in a practical sense) is to remove them from society, thus preventing further harm. This can be accomplished as efficiently and as cost-effectively by life imprisonment.
6. Since the death penalty is effectively vengeance and not justice, killing offenders makes no sense. If you kill a criminal you end all possibility for punishment - the dead don't suffer.
I hold this position as someone who HAS lost a loved one to violence. I make no exceptions.
Boru
1. If it is not moral for an individual to take the life of a criminal, it can never be moral for the State to do so.
2. Given the number of death sentences commuted or vacated since the advent of DNA testing, there is never 100% certainty that the proper person is being executed.
3. The death penalty is not and never has been a deterrent to crime.
4. Corollary to #3: If someone commits a capital crime and isn't apprehended immediately, there is nothing to stop them from repeating the crime (you can only kill them once).
5. The whole point of punishing criminals (in a practical sense) is to remove them from society, thus preventing further harm. This can be accomplished as efficiently and as cost-effectively by life imprisonment.
6. Since the death penalty is effectively vengeance and not justice, killing offenders makes no sense. If you kill a criminal you end all possibility for punishment - the dead don't suffer.
I hold this position as someone who HAS lost a loved one to violence. I make no exceptions.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax
