RE: The Death Penalty - are you for or against it and why?
February 22, 2011 at 9:24 pm
(This post was last modified: February 22, 2011 at 9:25 pm by Oldandeasilyconfused.)
A moral relativist, I neither support nor oppose capital punishment as an absolute principle.
I'm unaware of any convincing moral justification of capital punishment within traditional Judaeo-Christian values. I do find the practice barbaric and wasteful.The eye for an eye argument is tu quoque. I favour compensation over revenge. I also have a practical objection: In the US,development in DNA has indicated a significant risk of error. It has been shown that quite a few capital convictions are unsafe.
The practice becomes more pragmatic if you do not have an appeals process which can last a decade and cost millions of dollars.
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The PRC have a very different legal system:
Above all,the Chinese see crime as anti social and parasitic.They have a long list of capital crimes,and execute thousands of people a year. Execution is usually by a bullet to the back of the neck. The organs are often harvested and sold.
There is no presumption of innocence (like France) No adversarial legal system and no trial by jury. Usually one judge.The role of the defence lawyer is NOT to prove innocence,but to plead mitigation and remorse. The conviction rate in the PRC is about 98%. This is probably because a guilty plea will often avoid the death penalty.
I'm unaware of any convincing moral justification of capital punishment within traditional Judaeo-Christian values. I do find the practice barbaric and wasteful.The eye for an eye argument is tu quoque. I favour compensation over revenge. I also have a practical objection: In the US,development in DNA has indicated a significant risk of error. It has been shown that quite a few capital convictions are unsafe.
The practice becomes more pragmatic if you do not have an appeals process which can last a decade and cost millions of dollars.
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
The PRC have a very different legal system:
Above all,the Chinese see crime as anti social and parasitic.They have a long list of capital crimes,and execute thousands of people a year. Execution is usually by a bullet to the back of the neck. The organs are often harvested and sold.
There is no presumption of innocence (like France) No adversarial legal system and no trial by jury. Usually one judge.The role of the defence lawyer is NOT to prove innocence,but to plead mitigation and remorse. The conviction rate in the PRC is about 98%. This is probably because a guilty plea will often avoid the death penalty.
