Is there a crime that would make the death penalty justifiable?

@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;116040 wrote:

I have mused long and hard about the effectiveness of the death penalty and if there were crimes that would really justify it as revenge.

1) What about the "rape of babies" that have happened frequently here in South Africa where these depraved monsters think they can cure themselves of aids by doing this unspeakable act?. There is no capital punishment in South Africa so these beasts are usually out in the community again after a spell of ten years or so in prison, where they have enjoyed cooked meals and television and many other comforts of home

What does the forum think?

Revenge is not a justification, although it may be an excuse. But capital punishment is not justified by revenge. It is usually justified by: a. deterrence, and b. justice.

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

The crime that makes the death penalty justifiable is the desire to justify the death penalty...
For the state to kill in all the people's names is a dirty business no matter how it is accomplished...There are alternatives, and killing for killing only spreads the guilt, and does not cure it...

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@Alan McDougall,

Multiple murders, child murders, rape murders, torture murders, political assasination, assasination of a police officer. The only question for me is the establishment of absolute guilt not conviction by circumstantial evidence. It may not serve as a detterent; for these types of individuals probably does not; but it does (in my view) serve justice (at least retribution). Such individuals can not ever be released safely back into society. There is no hope for rehabilitation and no purpose served in life incarceration. The money spent on life time imprisionment could be better spent in compensating victims or some other social cause.

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@Alan McDougall,

If absolute guilt were established in the case of child abuse such as rape of a five month old baby I would put the monster in the electric chair myself pull the switch and take pleasure in seeing it die.

Not keep it in the relative comforts of a modern prison

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/444213

High Profile Baby Rapes

A number of high profile baby rapes since 2001 (including the fact that they required extensive reconstructive surgery to rebuild urinary, genital, abdominal, or tracheal systems) increased the need to address the problem socially and legally. In 2001, a 9-month-old baby was raped by six men, aged between 24 and 66, after the infant had been left unattended by her teenage mother. A 4-year-old girl died after being raped by her father. A 14-month-old girl was raped by her two uncles. In February 2002, an 8-month-old infant was reportedly gang raped by four men. One has been charged (McGreal, 2001).

The infant has required extensive reconstructive surgery. The 8-month-old infant's injuries were so extensive, increased attention on prosecution has occurred. The raping of infants and/or children may also be due to the belief that sex with a child or baby will cure AIDS. Virginity testing is growing and many times occurs in school. Girls must lie on their backs with their pants and underwear off and legs in the air, preferably on a sloped floor (IRIN HIV/AIDS Weekly, 2001). A survey in East London, South Africa, by the University of South Africa found that 18% of 498 workers believed that sex with a virgin could cure AIDS (South Africa: Virgins, victims..., 2002). In Gauteng, 32% of those interviewed believed this myth.

Some discount this belief for the reason behind rape, but Barbara Kenyon, director of the Greater Nelspruit Rape Intervention Project in the Northern Province of South Africa, has found in follow-up visits that many children become HIV positive and that children who are raped are getting younger and younger. Some analysts have stated that desperate people are desperate for a cure. Money for AIDS drugs is essentially unavailable despite the victory by the South African government last year against pharmaceutical companies to buy AIDS-treatment drugs at a cheaper price.

Unemployment among Blacks and mixed race is anywhere from 30%-60%, but typically around 60%. Many individuals work without formal work contracts and benefits. The median income for Blacks and mixed race can be as low as $300/year, and the cost for AIDS drugs average $40 to $50 per month, clearly out of reach for a large majority of the population. Payment for health care in hospitals or care centers is means-based. Others blame the high rate of violence, including sexual violence, on a culture of violence that existed in South Africa for decades because of apartheid.

Rape, including child rape, is increasing at shocking rates in South Africa. Sexual violence against children, including the raping of infants, has increased 400% over the past decade (Dempster, 2002). According to a report by BBC news, a female born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped in her lifetime than learning how to read (Dempster, 2002).

When South Africa became a democracy in 1994, there were already 18,801 cases of rape per year, but by 2001 there were 24,892 (Dempster, 2002). Numbers vary by different institutions, but are nevertheless extremely troubling. The Institute of Race Relations found that more than 52,000 rapes were reported in 2000, and 40% of the victims were under age 18 (du Venage, 2002). The University of South Africa reports that 1 million women and children are raped there each year (South Africa: Focus on the Virgin Myth, 2002).

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@Alan McDougall,

Death is the scourge of all life; and for conscious humanity, absolutly terrifying...When the state kills the killer, or any criminal for that matter it assumes the place of both injured, and injurer... How; may I ask is suffering death through another, inflicted by society, and suffered by society in any sense better than throwing people in the can to see their lives washed away by a monotony of changless days... We suffer death even while we inflict it...Those who can contemplate death without pain or fear, without grasping the enormity of life, and the fragility of life for all are the criminals among us, not better than those they condemn to death...

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@Alan McDougall,

In any crime severe enough to warrant execution, it seems to be the first choice. What is the difference between execution and life imprisonment to someone on the outside. One must also consider that it costs less to imprison a murderer for life than to convict and execute the criminal ($1.9-3 million more to reach a single death sentence). The odds of retaliation from gang members as a result of the execution of another member is also more likely than the escape of a madman from a high-security prison.

And with triple the investigation costs of a trial where the death penalty isn't sought, tax money is ending up in the pockets of people who execute murderers and other criminals when it could be used to educate and prevent people from committing the crime in the first place.

This site has some interesting statistics on death penalty: Costs of the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

You know, many violent deaths are justified in some fashion, but what an individual does in heat, in outrage, out of a sense of injustice, in defense of self or loved ones...Let them be tried, examined, and if acting in justice, be freed...

What the state does is entirely a different matter... It is not hot blooded murder we most often attack with laws, but cold blooded murder, and no murder is more carefully calculated than murder by the state..It has every opportunity to affirm life, and avoid murder... The personal desires of the people with power inclines them to do nothing if not call for vengeance, which properly speaking, capital punishment is not....

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@Leonard,

Leonard;116167 wrote:

In any crime severe enough to warrant execution, it seems to be the first choice. What is the difference between execution and life imprisonment to someone on the outside. One must also consider that it costs less to imprison a murderer for life than to convict and execute the criminal ($1.9-3 million more to reach a single death sentence). The odds of retaliation from gang members as a result of the execution of another member is also more likely than the escape of a madman from a high-security prison.

And with triple the investigation costs of a trial where the death penalty isn't sought, tax money is ending up in the pockets of people who execute murderers and other criminals when it could be used to educate and prevent people from committing the crime in the first place.

This site has some interesting statistics on death penalty: Costs of the Death Penalty | Death Penalty Information Center

Just like the rest of you guys do not like capital punishment (Statistics were informative thanks!) but in the case of baby rape a premeditated act of unspeakable depravity I would do away with this beast in human form hanging is too good for them The bible states there is a sin for which there is no forgiveness in this life and the next. If anything qualifies for that sin it would be the rape of little children

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

Primitves used to have the family do the deed... Thus Orestes killed his mother, and if he had not, Electra would have...

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@Fido,

Revenge, vendetta, blood debt. These are valuable deterrents, and acceptable, honorable answers to injury. Unfortunately, we've become so "civilized" that we rely on the state to do our dirty work for us.

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@Alan McDougall,

Alan McDougall;116234 wrote:

Just like the rest of you guys do not like capital punishment (Statistics were informative thanks!) but in the case of baby rape a premeditated act of unspeakable depravity I would do away with this beast in human form hanging is too good for them The bible states there is a sin for which there is no forgiveness in this life and the next. If anything qualifies for that sin it would be the rape of little children

Put a mill stone around their neck and cast them into the deepest well. Any crime worthy of execution ..all who agree must be prepared to do the deed themselves....My worry is that if I kill, do I to become the victim?

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;116308 wrote:

Put a mill stone around their neck and cast them into the deepest well. Any crime worthy of execution ..all who agree must be prepared to do the deed themselves....

Why, I wonder, do you say that? Any particular reason? What would whether you were prepared to execute the person yourself have to do with whether the person deserved to be executed?

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;116311 wrote:

Why, I wonder, do you say that? Any particular reason? What would whether you were prepared to execute the person yourself have to do with whether the person deserved to be executed?

I do wonder at our communication at times...Any crime you or I would consider as worthy of execution..then I say we must be prepared to carry the execution out, ourselves..get it?

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;116315 wrote:

I do wonder at our communication at times...Any crime you or I would consider as worthy of execution..then I say we must be prepared to carry the execution out, ourselves..get it?

Yes. I got it in the first place. I asked what is your reason for saying that, since someone advocating execution but not being willing to do it himself does not mean that the execution was not deserved. You need to read more carefully, and that would help communication.

1 Reply

@Alan McDougall,

First of all, unless well has come to mean something other than well, that is no way to treat ones drinking water...

And, killing is an act which makes one the victim and the criminal...Death always wins, and humanity sufferes the loss of its members who take with them in dying something of the human experience, a lesson if you will, in their being... We think by killing them we absolve ourselves...This is not the case, but we inherite their crime...The difference between any of us is slight... By the very act of life we deserve death, because we feast on life, and destroy so much; and we will die, so the score is some what setteled...Children looking at the unfairness of life, that life is pain followed by death- hate God, and curse society, and seek to deserve death and pain... To take the pain and futility of life into ones being and make it a force for good is a rare quality... And then death is better, because we do not deserve it as much as we pay our debts with it... We are all the same, all paying for our lives with our lives... What is it to shorten a person's life by a few moments??? What does that do to reverence all life, which is a remarkable and beautiful experience???If you want less crime, make life more hope full...Show to others the mercy they feel God has denied to them, because when we do good, we are God...

---------- Post added 01-02-2010 at 10:37 AM ----------

kennethamy;116320 wrote:

Yes. I got it in the first place. I asked what is your reason for saying that, since someone advocating execution but not being willing to do it himself does not mean that the execution was not deserved. You need to read more carefully.

Like the answer to the question in In Cold Blood, Who is the executioner...
It is, We the People...No one wants blood on their hands... Everyone wants to hand the doing of the deed off to others, and the job has come with some perks...Since executing a virgin was once illegal, rape was a necessity, and keeping the clothes of the condemed was a reward...Think of the poor corpses, both cold and embarassed...

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;116320 wrote:

Yes. I got it in the first place. I asked what is your reason for saying that, since someone advocating execution but not being willing to do it himself does not mean that the execution was not deserved. You need to read more carefully, and that would help communication.

Whats your problem? I am making my opinion clear not asking for confirmation, from you. If you dont agree then say so. Im saying you cant divorce your opinions from the reality of what your decision entails. Don't eat meat if you cant kill the chicken.

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;116326 wrote:

Whats your problem? I am making my opinion clear not asking for confirmation, from you. If you dont agree then say so. Im saying you cant divorce your opinions from the reality of what your decision entails. Don't eat meat if you cant kill the chicken.

So, you have no reason for thinking that a person who advocates capital punishment should be prepared to do it himself, despite the fact that whether he is prepared to do it himself has nothing whatever to do with whether the capital punishment is deserved. You just feel that is so. Is that it? Well, I do not think that is so, and I just gave a reason for my view. (Why shouldn't I eat the chicken if I can't kill it? As a matter of fact, I eat all kinds of meat I don't kill, and would not want to kill. And so, I suppose, do you. What has my ability to kill a chicken have to do with my eating it? Nothing, so far as I can see).

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@kennethamy,

kennethamy;116329 wrote:

So, you have no reason for thinking that a person who advocates capital punishment should be prepared to do it himself, despite the fact that whether he is prepared to do it himself has nothing whatever to do with whether the capital punishment is deserved. You just feel that is so. Is that it? Well, I do not think that is so, and I just gave a reason for my view. (Why shouldn't I eat the chicken if I can't kill it? As a matter of fact, I eat all kinds of meat I don't kill, and would not want to kill. And so, I suppose, do you. What has my ability to kill a chicken have to do with my eating it? Nothing, so far as I can see).

If some depraved animal molested one of my children (Grandchildren in my case) I would have absolutely no hesitation in personally dispensing with the monster, if the law of the land allowed it. I do not view this as an act of murder but the act removed of a base beast from society

1 Reply

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;116329 wrote:

So, you have no reason for thinking that a person who advocates capital punishment should be prepared to do it himself, despite the fact that whether he is prepared to do it himself has nothing whatever to do with whether the capital punishment is deserved. You just feel that is so. Is that it? Well, I do not think that is so, and I just gave a reason for my view. (Why shouldn't I eat the chicken if I can't kill it? As a matter of fact, I eat all kinds of meat I don't kill, and would not want to kill. And so, I suppose, do you. What has my ability to kill a chicken have to do with my eating it? Nothing, so far as I can see).

Then I would say you have not earned your right to eat meat or have an opinion on capital punishment. Just like the politician who cries war war war and avoids his personal danger from it. We are not islands of independent views with no consequences of them.

1 Reply

Is there a crime that would make the death penalty justifiable?

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