au1929 wrote:Not only do I support capital punishment. But in cases similar to the one noted. I would have the perpetrator taken out to the nearest lamppost and hung. One more minute of life is one minute too long.
i'm with you au. this type of case is the main offense that i support the death penalty for.
i cannot think of any crime worse than abducting a small child, hurting them, doing things to them that they don't understand and then killing them. or as in this case worse. the coward piece of $hit couldn't even finish the job. instead, after using her for his sick pleasure and making the last minutes of her life a madhouse of fear, he simply bagged her up and dumped her in a hole like trash at a campsite. where she died slowly, alone, terrorized and in the dark.
screw him. the only moral issue in cases like this is that
any possibility of his ever being able to do this again be removed permanantly.
That's why the death penalty seems like it's necessary in some cases, there are just too many times when people who get sentenced to many years of prison time just get paroled, and of course nothing in them has changed. whatever the disease in their heads is that makes them capable of such heinous crimes is still there. absolutely nothing happens in prison that might change these people-- there is probably nothing that can change them. life with absolutely no possibilty of parole would be fine w/ me, except that we don't have room or resources in this overpopulated world to support people who are really nothing more than monsters.
Gotta say there's a helluva lotta appeal to the revenge angle, and that years, even decades, of supportin' a monster to a death by natural cause rankles a bit, but .... the arguments just don't carry the case for the death penalty as currently it is implemented, at least to my satisfaction. The way its done is wrong - inequitable, inefficient, imprecise - more than anything else, to my mind. The system is flawed, and that's what I think needs needs work.
Timber
The people who are against capital punishment are not looking to improve the system and make it fail safe. They do not believe, no matter how heinous the crime, the death penalty is appropriate.
Dora - For the solution is simple - life without parole end of story. There should not be an opportunity for parole whether this murderer has been "rehabilitated" or not. They took a life - they should pay for life and not the simple way out - death, but to pay every single day of their life. By suffering in prison every day. Death is too easy a way out. If they had these prisoners working for their keep in prison then us taxpayers would not have to be paying for their food and minor shelter. They shouldn't be just sitting around in prison, but given hard labor to foot the bill.
Au - I don't understand the statement that people against capital punishment are looking to improve upon the system. Actually anyone I have ever heard speak out against capital punishment are discussing how it should work - similar to what I stated above - most want prisoners to stay in prison for life and work for it.
au1929 wrote:Timber
The people who are against capital punishment are not looking to improve the system and make it fail safe. They do not believe, no matter how heinous the crime, the death penalty is appropriate.
but why are opponents responsible for improving the system that's not of their choosing? proponents should be at least be equally accountable. besides, proponents are in the majority. a step in that direction would be to ensure that every defendant on trial for a capital offense has competent representation.
Linkat wrote:Dora - For the solution is simple - life without parole end of story. There should not be an opportunity for parole whether this murderer has been "rehabilitated" or not. They took a life - they should pay for life and not the simple way out - death, but to pay every single day of their life. By suffering in prison every day. Death is too easy a way out. If they had these prisoners working for their keep in prison then us taxpayers would not have to be paying for their food and minor shelter. They shouldn't be just sitting around in prison, but given hard labor to foot the bill.
Au - I don't understand the statement that people against capital punishment are looking to improve upon the system. Actually anyone I have ever heard speak out against capital punishment are discussing how it should work - similar to what I stated above - most want prisoners to stay in prison for life and work for it.
i understand what you're saying, but my stance isn't based in revenge. it's based on removing the problem permanently.
and to a lesser extent, there is something to be said for the deterrent effect. but in order for it to work, you can't just threaten punishment, it must be carried out.
as it is now, everyone has rights, noone has responsibilities and if ya get caught, come up with an excuse why it's someone else's fault.
but that's just me bein' a liberal again... :wink:
Linkat
I said people who are against capital punishment are not looking to improve the system. The system I am talking about is capital punishment. The need to improve it is to make it fail safe against the possibility of executing an innocent individual. It should only be imposed in cases where there can be no doubt of guilt. For example. The two clowns who terrorized the Washington area by indiscriminate shooting and killing people.
By the way there is not a damn thing wrong with revenge.
Pretty much with ya there, au, at least in spirit.
Goin' back to a point DToM brought up - I don't buy the deterrent angle at all; murder, in fact much, if not most, violent crime, is heat-of-the-moment stuff. It is not "ill-considered", it simply is not considered or contemplated at all, its just perpetrated. Remorse, moral, ethical, or socio/legal compunction, second thoughts, and what have you don't enter the equation untill after-the-fact. A deterrent only works if it is considered prior to the act. No rational, law-abidin' person would be likely to consider violent crime, with or without legal deterrent. One irrational enough to engage in violent crime is unlikely to give much consideration to negative consequences of any sort prior to takin' violent action.
I agree with Timber on that one. The Death penalty is not a deterrent .
It may not be a deterant to those who have yet to commit a crime, but it sure is a deterant to those that have already commited a crime and are no longer around to commit any more.
still haven't heard why death penalty advocates don't share responsibility for ensuring that the penalty is only imposed justly. i think it's also untrue that opponents are doing nothing to improve the system. Barry Scheck & Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project are opponents, i think--although the only evidence i have for this at the moment is that they've been described as "abolitionists" by some advocates--and their project has overturned 157 wrongful convictions.
jpinMilwaukee wrote:It may not be a deterant to those who have yet to commit a crime, but it sure is a deterant to those that have already commited a crime and are no longer around to commit any more.
sure, and so would life without parole. by the way, once somebody's in jail, or put to death, they're
incapacitated, not
deterred.
timberlandko wrote:Pretty much with ya there, au, at least in spirit.
Goin' back to a point DToM brought up - I don't buy the deterrent angle at all; murder, in fact much, if not most, violent crime, is heat-of-the-moment stuff. It is not "ill-considered", it simply is not considered or contemplated at all, its just perpetrated.
that's why i said, to a lesser extent.
i'll agree that murder is either "heat" or sociopatholgical (ooohhh... my big word for the day. to bad there's no "z" or "x" in it. ). in either of those cases, right, no deterrent value at all.
but there may be enough that a guy would think twice about using a weapon in the commision of a crime such as burglary, etc.
I agree that there are many problems with the system as it is now, most importantly that there should be no chance in the slightest that a wrongfully convicted person is put to death. I just favor the death penalty in cases where there is no doubt that the person comitted a murder, and mostly I just mean people who are serial or multiple murderers. There can't be any doubt about some cases where an idividual has kidnapped and killed multiple children, for example, because in a lot of these cases it seems that the killers acknowledge responsibility or are caught with evidence, like "trophies" taken from the victim. In these cases, I favor the death penalty (and immediately, like Blueveined said, just a simple bullet, end of story), not life w/out parole; not for revenge, but simply because I think such a diseased life should terminated.
yitwail wrote:jpinMilwaukee wrote:It may not be a deterant to those who have yet to commit a crime, but it sure is a deterant to those that have already commited a crime and are no longer around to commit any more.
sure, and so would life without parole. by the way, once somebody's in jail, or put to death, they're
incapacitated, not
deterred.
frankly, in the case that this thread is formed around, i'd much rather take the money spent on feeding, clothing and housing the guy for the next 50+ years and instead spend it on schools or something.
deterred, incapacitated... either way, the guy won't be harming anymore children.
DontTreadOnMe wrote:deterred, incapacitated... either way, the guy won't be harming anymore children.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
DontTreadOnMe wrote:frankly, in the case that this thread is formed around, i'd much rather take the money spent on feeding, clothing and housing the guy for the next 50+ years and instead spend it on schools or something.
deterred, incapacitated... either way, the guy won't be harming anymore children.
fine by me, if you stop saying it's a better
deterrent than life without parole. incidentally, i doubt this guy will live another 50 years. child molesters don't usually live long lives in prison.
while we're talking about ways to save money, we could also stop spending money on permanently housing guys that steal a can of beer for their third offense, and spend it on schools.
