The DEATH Penalty

[Ryantology]

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.

Could you end a person's life based on the prediction that they might not have much of a life left after incarceration? On the prediction that they might suffer violence from other inmates?

What about allowing the inmate a choice between death or perpetual imprisonment?

[c172]

Having not rea the entire thread, there's my thoughts. "Cruel and unusual" is kind of vague (although there are court decisions that solidify its meaning). I do support the death penalty. However, it should be limited to murder and the very most heinous, debilitating rapes. Some folks just don't deserve to live.

Having said that, I do not think the death penalty should be a state question, but a federal one. It's odd to me that in Utah, you can be executed, but in Hawaii, you cannot. I do believe in states' rights for some things, but the DP is not one of them.

As well, the method should change. The five various modes of execution employed in the U.S.A. cost various amounts of money to use. Utah still has the firing squad for those convicted before a certain date, as well as at least one guy who successfully contested that lethal injection was cruel and unusual. I'd simplify that even further and advocate a single gunshot to the back of the head. Simple, cheap, probably painless, but scary to contemplate.

[Chad32]

I always figure that if you have a high enough caliber gun, a shot to the head really should do the trick. The only real problem is the mess, but a bag over the head with perhaps a plate on the other side so the bullet won't rip through should be find.

[c172]

In China, they do those executions outside in the dirt. In Russia, when cannibalist Andrei Chikatilo was executed, I believe the room used had a drain in the middle. Sandbags could also be used to eliminate ricochet of the bullet. That's what the Utah firing squad room uses.

[Zen Badger]

The death penalty should be reserved for the irredeemably evil serial paedophiles, murderers and the like.

People for whom there is no chance of change or redemption.

[Chad32]

I'm not sure what the point of a squad is, except maybe so the individuals can pretend their particular shot wasn't the one that killed him.

[c172]

I think it is partially that, and partially just plain tradition.

[Angrboda]

The death penalty should be reserved for the irredeemably evil serial paedophiles, murderers and the like.

People for whom there is no chance of change or redemption.

Unfortunately there tends to be an inverse relationship between the narrowness of the criteria and the effectiveness of the entire scheme. The more constrained the criteria, the more difficult it is to definitively demonstrate that an individual meets that criteria. This has two effects, it raises the administrative costs associated with capital punishment beyond all reason, and it also makes the process more fallible so that a larger percentage of the class which is deserving of the punishment escapes the administrative process designed to ensure that those in the class are punished. There's also the problem of reversible harm in that, if, as an exception to the general rule of not executing "ordinary" criminals, an innocent or ordinary criminal is punished under this criteria, that makes the relative magnitude of the error greater. (For example, suppose now you would execute 5% of murderers, amounting to 684 in one year in the U.S., and two happen to be innocent. Compare this to the case where you execute 0.05% of murderers, or 7 in one year, and one turns out to be innocent. The relative harm done to the innocent is greater.)

[KUSA]

The only problem there is with the death penalty is we don't use it enough. I mean we really need to clean them prisons out and get some more elbow room in them.
I am in favor of public executions with paid admission to see it. The money could always go to a good cause.

[FlyingNarwhal]

I'm not morally opposed to a death penalty, but I think the requirements to be allowed to go for it should be extremely stringent. There have been a lot of people that have been freed from death row because of DNA evidence clearing them from the crime. So I think that the requirements for the death penalty should go beyond just a. heinous crime and, b. found guilty. I think there should be video, DNA evidence, a few eyewitnesses....just an overwhelming amount of evidence, what would be called (according to my Law & Order knowledge) a slam dunk case. And then when we sentence them to death, don't stick them in a cell for 12 years and wait to kill them. If you have all that evidence just take them behind the court house and put a bullet in the head.