The Death Penalty - Should it be abolished?

As well as men recently exonerated by DNA evidence, after spending a decade or more on Death Row! I am opposed to the death penalty for that reason alone. If it were possible to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that someone was guilty of heinous murders, then it would be more okay with me, but that seems to be impossible.

Done
This topic was discussed over many pages berfore your time here.

My answer: No Death Penalty!

Quesiton? When the US or Israel assasinates people that they say are terrorists is that carrying out the Death Penalty minus a trial?

Re: The Death Penalty - Should it be abolished?
First of all, I agree with you. It is barbaric **** passed down from the old testament, and should be abolished.

Second,



Can you give an example of this? I don't know if this is true.

I once strongly favored the death penalty. But I have come to realize that it makes society less civilized, less human, to execute people. The one thing I ask to have in place instead of that is the kind of sentencing that keeps the really bad ones out of society forever; no parole for mass murderers and the like.

"An eye for an eye blinds us all" (something like that)

Can't remember who that quote was by.

Wow, what a nice company:

http://www.derechos.org/dp/

At the dawn of the 21st century, the death penalty is considered by most civilized nations as a cruel and inhuman punishment. It has been abolished de jure or de facto by 106 nations, 30 countries have abolished it since 1990. However, the death penalty continues to be commonly applied in other nations. China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States and Iran are the most prolific executioners in the world. Indeed, the US is one of six countries (including also Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen) which executes people who were under 18 years-old at the time they committed their crimes.

I would love to see the death penalty abolished. Lock them up and throw away the key, but don't execute them. But I certainly would not cater to them behind bars either. The cable TV would have to go.

Now, just to really get everyone here really ticked at me, I would also suggest that if we stop killing the guilty, then we should also stop the killing of unborn children. Of course, we cannot have that. They don't have any rights. Only murderers and such have rights. But that is an argument for another thread.

nah, I actually agree with you. Only, I suppose there is possibility that we have different opinion about WHEN someone becomes "unborn child"...I hope you know what I mean. E.g I don't think abortion in third month of pregnancy is murder - however I do think it's a murder in fifth or sixth month.

Okay, I'll play devil's advocate here...the only problem with the death penalty is that the process is too slow, and too open to appeals by murdering bastards. Lock them up and throw away the key? That drains your tax dollars way more than a quick execution. In fact, I still believe that if executions were shown on pay-per-view, the cost to society would be minimal. Everybody loves a good hangin', and I think it would be very marketable indeed.

In all seriousness, I do support stem cell research. I think it's awful that the anti-abortionists are strong enough to oppose it.

Is the death penalty moral?

Probably not. But, the death penalty advocates often say it's a deterent to crime. Statistics don't support this claim. States who execute the most people, Florida and Texas, have cities that always make the FBI's list of the most dangerous places.

I just wish proponants of the death would be honest. Come forward and say it comes down to "an eye for an eye." Don't slither around the specious deterent argument which doesn't hold water.

Personally, if my loved one were murdered (a thought too difficult to honestly wrap my imagination around), I think what I would prefer for that individual to be incarcerated for a life spent performing hard labor: no books, no music, no TV, no gym, no family visits, no sex -- just 18 hours a day at really hard labor to be returned to a 6'x8 cage each night and without the possibility of parole.

I can't think of a worse punishment with the possible exception of being used for medical science.

that's your opinion cavfancier and that's fine. I would, however, consider fact that this opinion in all world is shared only by political leaders of such nice and modern countries and socities as Saudi Arabia, Yemen or Iran

by the way, Devil's advocate or Advocatus Diaboli is title of high official of Catholic Church (who has duty to find all possible reasons for someone not to be bonificated) so I guess you would rather skip that title ))

That's a great link, myownusername!
I found some others.
To address the problem of appeals, well, that's a right in this country. To say that a convicted inmate on death row should lose that right is rather unfair. It is there to assist people to prove their innocence. Just because they've been sentenced to death doesn't mean they are actually guilty and should lose the right of appeal! Imagine if your loved one was wrongly convicted (happens all the time) and they had no chance to appeal! Then you'd see what's wrong with that argument!
Although some proponents of capital punishment would argue that its merits are worth the occasional execution of innocent people, most would hasten to insist that there is little likelihood of the innocent being executed. However, a large body of evidence from the 1980s and 1990s shows that innocent people are often convicted of crimes - including
capital crimes - and that some have been executed. These erroneous convictions have occurred in virtually every jurisdiction from one end of the nation to the other. Nor have they declined in recent years, despite the new death penalty statutes approved by the Supreme Court. Examples:

http://archive.aclu.org/library/case_against_death.html#irreversible

Several factors help explain why the judicial system cannot guarantee that justice will never miscarry: overzealous prosecution, mistaken or perjured testimony, faulty police work, coerced confessions, the defendant's previous criminal record, inept defense counsel, seemingly conclusive circumstantial evidence, and community pressure for a conviction, among others. And when the system does go wrong, it is volunteers outside the criminal justice system - journalists, for example - who rectify the errors, not the police or prosecutors.
"Whatever you think about the death penalty, a system that will take life must first give justice." http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/death.html

Its time for the death penalty to be killed off.

In fact I can't believe there are people out there who think its ok. What sort of stoneage/bronze age /iron age are you living in?

It IS pretty primitive.

Primitive, but not pretty imo

I was not aware that Japan imposes the death penalty.


LIFE OR DEATH?

DEATH-ROW WARDEN
Haunted by visions of a 'horrifying act'

By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

It is the staircase of doom. Who knows what goes through a person's mind as they ascend those steps to the scaffold. Are they consumed with dread? Filled with thoughts of their loved ones? Or are they burdened with thoughts of their crime? No one knows because no one comes back down those stairs alive.
But Kiichi Toya has been there. He has seen with his own eyes the executions. And to this day, those images still haunt him.

From 1944 till his retirement in 1972, Toya was a prison warden, and his career included working at the detention facilities in Sendai and Osaka, which are two of seven in Japan where condemned prisoners are hanged. During each of those postings he worked on death row, feeding the inmates, taking care of them -- and then killing them.

"The job of wardens is supposed to be to help convicted criminals get back on their own feet," said Toya. "But the death penalty is completely the opposite of everything we are supposed to be doing."

But done it is, and once the justice minister of the day gives written approval for an execution, the governor of the prison holding the inmate has five days to carry out the sentence. In that interval, the execution chamber is inspected to ensure everything is operating as it should, security is stepped up, and arrangements are made for a chaplain of the appropriate religion to attend. Most importantly, though, the wardens who will carry out the execution are chosen.

No one wants to do it, but orders must be obeyed. Unless, that is -- as former prison warden Toshio Sakamoto explained in his 2003 book, "Shikei wa Ika-ni Shikko Sareruka (How they Carry Out the Death Penalty)" -- a warden's wife is pregnant, a relative is in the hospital, one of their children is getting married, or they are in mourning. Other than that, once you are chosen, there is no way out -- short of quitting the job.

While all this is happening, every effort is made to prevent the death-row prisoners getting any sense an execution is imminent. In fact, they don't know until just minutes before it happens.

Every morning, from after breakfast at around 8 a.m. until about 11 a.m., the latest time hangings are carried out, death-row inmates sit alone in their cells in total silence -- straining for the sound of unfamiliar footsteps. Day after day, month after month, year after year, and in some cases decade after decade, until the moment those footsteps stop at their cell door, they wait in sheer terror. Toya called this "the hours of hell."

"These prisoners sit still as if their body has turned into a stick," said Toya. "Their whole body has become their ears. If no one appears during that hour, they are thankful for another day. If those footsteps come and pass on by, they are relieved, but the next second they wonder which of their friends is to be executed."

When the wardens stop at the doomed inmate's cell, they do not tell the prisoner they are about to be executed. Instead, Toya explained, they say that the prison governor would like to see the inmate, and tell them to make themselves ready. But of course, the prisoner knows.

Toya recalled a prisoner who, while being led out of his cell, shouted out tearfully to the other inmates, "Today is my day to go. Thank you for everything! Take care of yourselves!" And the other inmates, choking back tears, answered, "I'll join you soon!" and "Please wait for me there!"

After being taken out of their cell, the condemned prisoner is led to the small execution chamber -- and those stairs. Climbing up, he meets the prison governor and the chaplain standing on the scaffold. There, the prisoner is told by the governor that he is about to be executed, and then the chaplain prays. A pen and paper are on hand in case the prisoner wants to write a will.

"One time, there was a man who's last wish was to sing a song," said Toya. "His wish was granted and, in a loud voice, he sang a song from his youth. I think that by singing this song, he was able to forget his fears for a moment."

Next, though, in quick succession, wardens blindfold the prisoner with a white cloth, cuff his hands, and tie his feet together. Some struggle from fear, Toya said, while others seem calm as if accepting fate. Then the noose is placed around the neck and tightened.

Out of sight of the scaffold in a separate area of the chamber, the wardens chosen to perform the execution await, each with a button before them. Although the supersecretive Justice Ministry claims to have no data on the exact number of buttons, Toya says that in his experience there were always five. However, only one is wired to the scaffold, so when the wardens are told to press their buttons, none of them knows who actually triggered the trapdoor through which the prisoner drops.

"This is supposed to relieve the burden of the wardens. But it doesn't," says Toya. "It just means that all of you feel you killed that person.

"We all tried to forget, to erase the horrifying sight. But I still remember the rope trembling and swaying left to right. And it doesn't stop moving for 12 to 15 minutes."

Finally, when all movement has ceased, a medical officer checks for a pulse before declaring the prisoner dead.

And that's it -- until the next person's time is up.

For those wardens, though, the end isn't so swift. "Please do not make people commit this horrifying act," Toya pleaded during our recent interview with tears in his eyes. "The death penalty is terrifying -- not only for those who are to be killed, but for those who kill as well."

The Japan Times: April 25, 2004
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