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You seem to be contradicting yourself, or, at the very least, making some sort of distinction that is lost on me. It is for people who kill out of passion, but then it isn't?

You, of course, understand that guilty verdicts are only returned where the DA has proved that there is no "reasonable doubt". However, we also have many cases of people convicted under such conditions. By placing people who have been convicted in jail, we have an opportunity to allow an appeal process to proceed. If mistakes have been made in convicting them, we have an opportunity to correct our mistakes. (We aren't guaranteed to find our mistakes, but at least we have a chance). If we kill the convicted, there is no opportunity to fix our mistakes. And, if you eliminate the appeal process, than you increase the chance that we don't see our mistakes, and than we kill people under mistaken convictions.

And, all this for some kind of vindication? That is not civilised.

   

Well, at first I said someone killing out of passion is alright, but then I thought about it, and you could think that every murder is done out of some sort of passion, so they should all be thrown into the mix also. And, lets say that everyone will be allowed one appeal, and then they will be sent to the firing range. Simple as that. If an innocent person is killed, then my bad, but the punishment was inforced for the crime, and only a small percentage is innocent who's put to death anyways. Nothing human is perfect. Someone gets on a plane and they could die, why, you could die at anytime, and getting killed in the system of law is just your bad luck like any of the other scenarios. Wrong place, wrong time. To compare Canada's no death penalty stance to the US's death penalty stance is kind of ridiculous when you think about it, because Canada doesn't have nearly as much crime or types of crime as the US.

For the reason of retribution it seems just to me, even though im not a Christian, I believe in the law of the jungle. Someone comes up, shots you, rapes your wife, kills your children, and then you recommend that he be rehabilitated and treated fairly with plenty of appeals, and no death penalty for him either, because that is inhumane, right? It would not be civilised to put him to death, because after all, what's a couple of children, and your wife, she can have an abortion for his baby, and she will feel better, and you could even visit him in jail and bring him snacks, and have nice conversations with him, right? Wouldn't that be civilised? I mean, people die all the time, so it doesn't really matter if your children die and your wife gets raped to me, but the fact that you wouldn't do anything to the man who did it, and would hope that he is treated fairly and that he gets plenty of appeals, and you would for sure not want him to die, because other innocent people run the risk of dying at your decision, makes me wonder how much you care about the people who died as opposed to the person who killed them.


To me, innocent people, and people in general are just numbers, and it's luck that you live and don't die, because there's so many ways you could die. If 2% out of 100% of people who die are innocent, then so be it, and if I did that way, then so be it, I don't much care. Wrong place, wrong time, but normally you need concrete evidence to convict someone of that, so it's the persons fault, and also we really need to bring down the cost and not make it so nice with lethal injections, I say shoot em. What is civilised anyways? Helping out the person who murdered your family and paying for their meals? Or paying for them to be killed? Civilised is a vague term. To me it's civilised to get rid of these people of society and their meals and life in general for the fact that they did that to someone else.

It should never even get to the point where there needs to be an appeal, someone should only be convicted or sentenced to death if it is without doubt that they did the murder. Why does there need to be an appeal if the person 100% did the crime?

   

The death penalty condemns the innocent to die.
There is absolutely no proof for this statement. Before any person is executed in this country, twelve members of a carefully selected jury have to decide -- beyond a reasonable doubt -- that a defendant is guilty. The possibility of an innocent person being executed is extremely small, and continues to decrease with the improvement of forensic science. It is true that death row prisoners have been released, but it is not true that they were innocent.


Consider the following fact: A judgment of acquittal is final.9 Even if overwhelming evidence is later uncovered, the prosecution can never appeal. A retrial would constitute "double jeopardy" which is not permitted under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.10 Likewise, if a conviction is reversed on appeal because the evidence of guilt was legally insufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, then the defendant cannot be retried. Furthermore, if a court decides that the evidence brought against the defendant was legally insufficient, it is not saying that the defendant was actually innocent. By making this decision, the court is merely saying that the prosecution did not prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.11


Dudley Sharp notes, "It is important to preserve the distinction between acquittal and innocence, which is regularly obfuscated in news media headlines."12 The media often overlooks this distinction, and thrives on causing widespread panic that an innocent person was falsely convicted. Being acquitted, however, does not mean that the defendant did not actually commit the crime. A jury must acquit "someone who is probably guilty but whose guilt is not established beyond a reasonable doubt."


The death penalty is not a deterrent against violent crime.
The death penalty as a deterrent to crime is not the issue. Capital punishment is, pardon the redundancy, a punishment for crime. As a punishment, the death penalty is 100% effective--every time it is used, the prisoner dies.


Additionally, the death penalty is actually 100% effective as a deterrent to crime: the murderer will never commit another crime once he has been executed. While there is no proof that any innocents have been executed in this century, there is an abundance of evidence that prisoners who either escaped or were released early murdered innocent victims again.13 Professor Paul Cassell points out that

Out of a sample of 164 paroled Georgia murderers, eight committed subsequent murders within seven years of release. A study of twenty Oregon murderers released on parole in 1979 found that one (i.e., five percent) had committed a subsequent homicide within five years of release. Another study found that of 11,404 persons originally convicted of "willful homicide" and released during 1965 and 1974, 34 were returned to prison for commission of a subsequent criminal homicide during the first year alone.14
Even those who are not released but still serve life terms murder again. Cassell further notes that, "At least five federal prison officers have been killed since December 1982, and the inmates in at least three of the incidents were already serving life sentences for murder."15 Had these prisoners been executed, innocent lives would have been saved. The death penalty is, without question, a deterrent to murder.

THE DEATH PENALTY IN THE UNITED STATES


In reality, the murderer actually gets off easy when he is sentenced to death in the United States. There are five methods of execution used in the United States: lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, hanging, and firing squad.4 The most commonly used methods today are lethal injection and the electric chair. If a person is lethally injected, he is first put to sleep with thiopental sodium, and then he is administered potassium chloride that will stop his heart.5 The criminal dies from anesthetic overdose and respiratory and cardiac arrest while he or she is unconscious. As for the electric chair, there is an initial jolt of 2,300 volts (9.5 amps) which lasts for eight seconds, followed by a low-voltage jolt of 1,000 volts (4 amps) for 22 seconds and finally a jolt of 2,300 volts (9.5 amps) for eight seconds.6 The murderer is rendered unconscious immediately, or within the first eight seconds at most, as the initial high-voltage jolt kills the brain.7 The subsequent jolts stop the heart in case it is still beating.8 Compare this to the heinous crimes of the murderer, where often the victim will go through excruciating pain for minutes, hours, or sometimes days. The minute amount of pain experienced by the murderer on death row does not even begin to compensate for the pain of the victims. If the purpose of the death penalty was retribution, then criminals would be executed in the way they murdered their victims. But alas, the point of the death penalty is not to see how much pain can be unleashed on the murderer but to bring him to justice.


WORD GAMES


First of all, the slogan misses an important point. The death penalty does not punish people for killing, but for murder. Killing is justified when it is done in self-defense. Killing means to cause death. Murder, on the other hand, is defined as, "the unlawful and malicious or premeditated killing of one human being by another" (for the less observant, this definition cannot be applied to the death penalty, because the death penalty is lawful, non-malicious, and is not carried out by an individual but by the government). "Kill," "murder," and "execute" are not interchangeable terms. Death penalty opponents would like us to believe otherwise. Just because two actions result in the same end does not make them morally equivalent. If it were so, legal incarceration would be equated with kidnapping, lovemaking with rape, self-defense with assault, etc.1 Therefore, the slogan is better stated, "We execute people to show people that murder is wrong." Not quite as catchy, is it?


MORALITY


Morality is defined as "the principles of right and wrong." As moral creatures, humans deserve praise for good deeds, and punishment for bad ones. Punishment may range from a slap on the wrist to death, but the punishment must fit the crime. This is known as lex talionis, or in common jargon, "an eye for an eye." Abolitionists often insist that if we argue for lex talion justice we must be prepared to rape rapists, beat sadists, and burn down the houses of arsonists. Certainly, this is the case if we take the lex talion literally, and the criminals do deserve those punishments, but we needn't take it literally. The ancient Jews did not.2 They allowed for monetary compensation for physical or property damage.


Why then, if it is not morally okay to rape rapists, is it acceptable to execute murderers? The answer is simple. There is no redeeming value to carrying out the former punishment. Raping the rapist will only cause someone else to degrade themselves by doing it. It will not prevent the rapist from raping again. Executing murderers, however, prevents them from committing their crime again, and thus protects innocent victims. The good, therefore, outweighs the bad, and the executioner is morally justified in taking the murderer's life. On the other hand, if the abolitionist argues that killing is always wrong, then he must also concede that killing in self-defense is unacceptable and should be punished. Few, if any, however, are willing to do so. The abolitionist may choose to argue that the state should never kill. But consider also the scenario of protecting someone else's life. Are police officers (the state) justified in killing attempted murderers to save a victim's life? If the answer to this question is yes, then no moral arguments will stand up against the death penalty.


Morally, it is wrong to incarcerate someone for murder. A sentence of life in an air-conditioned, cable-equipped prison where a person gets free meals three times a day, personal recreation time, and regular visits with friends and family3 is a slap in the face of morality. People will say here that not all prisons are like the one cited. This betrays an ignorance, however, of current trends. Eventually, criminal rights activists will see to it that all prisons are nice places to go. But regardless of the conditions of a particular prison, someone who murders another human being can only be made to pay for his actions by forfeiting his own life. This is so, simply because a loss of freedom does not and cannot compare to a loss of life. If the punishment for theft is imprisonment, then the punishment for murder must be exponentially more severe, because human life is infinitely more valuable than any material item.


---I understand this is long, but if you want to understand my point of view, I recommend you read it.

   

God damn it Johnnybgoodaaaaa every time i read one of your rants i want to hit you in the head with a tea pot. You can talk all you want, rant all you want but the facts remian the same. Violence breads violence, is a downward spirel. using the death penalty old fansion and backwards.

There are 5 countrys in the world that exacute people under the age of 18.
-Democratic Republic of Congo
-Iran
-Nigeria
-Saudi Arabia
-the USA

Since January 1990 Amnesty International has documented 35 executions of child offenders in eight countries. The USA carried out 19 executions – more than all other countries combined. Link

Thats a good list to be on.

   

Well, if someone wouldn't kill people and could actually think, maybe they wouldn't be killed. Under your logic, it would be wrong to kill people such as the columbine killers. Hell, maybe you think it was okay for them to kill kids, but not okay for the government to eliminate them. And I don't see how violence breads violence, because when you kill a murder--I gave you statitics on how many times a murder kills when they are released--they never kill again, so it ends the cycle of violence. Also, most children who are executed are adults by the time it happens.

Also, the post I made before your post wasn't a rant, but an article I found on the death penalty filled with information which I thought stated my point of view more clearly. You obviously completely ignored that post, and then posted something dismissing everything I said as a rant. Too bad you didn't read it, cause otherwise you would not suddenly be talking about murdering children. Children or adult, murder is still wrong, and most children under the age of 17 get life in prison. They might go as low as 16, but usually by 16 you know that murder is wrong. The didn't give Malvo the death penalty though, and he snipped people.

It's just your opinion that the death penalty is old fashioned an backwards. What is this "we are so modern and civilised" way you people have of thinking? We're still animals, and it makes perfect sense to kill someone who kills other people to me.

Canada's not on the best list either. Canada has the second most largest number of CO2 emission, just behind the US, which if you know is what destroys the atmosphere. If you want to get into list, you can bitch at the US for killing people, while you destroy the planet with them. Having some murderer killed is the least of my worries. I don't kill people or commit crimes, which I can understand why the world would be better off without these people, while you think they should be fed and have cable tv. Everyone is entitiled to their opinion, but I think saving the planet against major companies who pollute and from over consumerism is better than worrying about some 17 yr old who was executed because he killed some people without remorse.

   

It would be wrong to kill them.



So you think that the USA is doing a good job on crime. There killing a lot of murders, and DRUG users so the USA must be safe..WRONG! The death penalty is not a deturant

   

What drug users have been sentenced to death for doing drugs? If anyone has been sentenced to death for drugs, it's someone who is a drug smuggler and has killed people, if you remember, alot of illegal drug suppliers commit murder, such as the cartels.

On another note, I don't agree with the drug laws. I think people should be able to do what they want, but murder just doesn't feel right to me, and it feels right that if someone takes a life, they should pay with their own instead of living in an air-conditioned cell with recreational time and free food.

I've never heard of drug users getting the death penalty, so are you making up stuff now? When was the last time someone who smoked marijuana was sentenced to death? I think the US is doing as good of a job on crime as they can, minus the currupt cops and stupid drug laws. They have caught a good numbers of murderers though and taken them off the street, and gang members and robbers. If they were doing a bad job all those people would still be on the street.

You can't eliminate crime obviously, but you can make the possibility of crimes happening go down by taking criminals off the street and killing murderers, cause those murderers will never commit another murder then. If you had a choice between 10 people dying, and 1 person dying, which would you choose?

   

How is it wrong to kill someone like Osama or the Columbine killers? You think those people should live and have the chance to get out of prison and back into society? Or that the Americans public should pay for them to be fed, housed, and so on?

   

To kill someone becasue they klilled is falling to there level. Its contadictory to what the goverment says is right and wrong.

   

I dunno, to me killing an innocent person is worse than killing someone who kills innocent people. I don't care what the government says is right and wrong, I have my opinions on what I feel is right and wrong.

So you're telling me me that when someone like osama kills 3000 innocent people who did nothing to him, it is wrong to kill that person and we are sinking to his level, because he is innocent also? It's okay for him to kill people that did nothing to him, but wrong for the people he did something to to retaliate and kill him?

   

Someone breaks into your house, kills your wife and children, and is coming after you, but with your logic, it would be wrong to kill him because then you would be sinking to his level, right?

Lets also say that he is coming to you, but not that he is for sure going to kill you, so self defense is ruled out, but on the floor you can see your dead wife with here throat slit and your children lying beside her. Lets say that the criminal is going to hold you hostage and rape your wife in front of you....what do you do, because you don't want to sink to his level? No phones to call the cops either, and this criminal is most likely insane.

   

I've always found it strange how such a religious country could impose the death penalty... isn't that weird?

I had the exact same argument over the death penalty with my mum, it took a lot of talking/discussing/arguing but I actually finally made her see sense! She saw it from the point of view that if someone had killed me, her son, she would want to see him get the death penalty. I told her what if I was one of the innocent people wrongly convicted of murder and sentenced to death, indirectly by my own pro-death penalty mother? It soon shut her up

   

I never said it was ok for people to kill, where are you getting this? Yes its wrong to kill Osama Bil Laden. A life is a life, weather its an evil life, or child's life. I an im not way condoning killing, as i have said i totaly againts anyone killing anyone for any reason. Its wrong and sadistic for people to punish killers by killing them. I'm glad i don't like in a countrey that does, i would be ashamed of myself.




I think you need to read my posts becasue your not understanding what im saying. If someone came in to my house and killed my family and came after me, and i killed him. That would be self defence. But i have no right to go after that man and purposly kill him. I agree with the right to self defense but not the right to murder.

Johnnybgoodaaaaa how old are you. From you're rants and how you answer you're own posts (there is an edit button) and how to refuse to read what you're oposition rights, i mean my posts are not long, read them. And you put word is people mouths like u just did to me, your telling me what i did and didnt say, what i do and dont mean. Dont do that.

   

That's why we have the court. Victims can give out even punishment, im sure a lot of people would sentacne the people who robbed thier card to death too. The court is our none bias factor in the whole sentancing procedure

   

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