Support, and they need to bring back the firing squad.

bullets are less expensive than injection.

They need to make the process quicker too, stop wasting taxpayer money on this bullshit. Get rid of life sentence too, if the fucker is in there for life, put him down.

I know some people on here will be all "but what about their rights" and all other sorts of hippie shit. Well fuck their rights, what about the rights of their victims.

[Edited on July 9, 2010 at 2:29 PM. Reason : put in an express lane. ]

7/9/2010 2:28:40 PM

^
I just wanted to say congrats on getting into grad school, despite being mentally handicapped. Must have been a tough journey.

7/9/2010 2:48:57 PM

^You have what you believe, I have what I believe; no need to attempt personal insults. Its a poll, and I'm allowed to have and will voice my opinion.

You have yours, but you don't see me coming in with the insults.

7/9/2010 4:10:04 PM

^
You're right, but if you're going to come here and advocate the return of firing squads and making death row an express lane, I'm going to call you a fucking idiot. Sorry.

7/9/2010 4:22:52 PM

Why even have a jury trial?

Look I saw the guy with blood on him. I should be able to cut his head off with my sword.

7/9/2010 4:28:55 PM

^^ I don't really have much problem with a firing squad, but I do have a problem with making it an "express lane." it probably shouldn't take as long as it sometimes does, but we need to be very thorough if we're going to institutionally putting people to death. you need to be awfully sure of guilt, and you need to have a good while for people to cool down and make sure that you really do want to inflict that punishment.


i'm in favor of a juror from the trial being randomly selected to throw the switch...that way you can't be chickenshit and recommend the death penalty unless you're serious enough in your convictions to do it yourself.

7/9/2010 4:45:20 PM

^That sounds like you need a long delay before the trial then, if your goal is to deflect anger and wait for people to cool down. However, that would interfere with that whole "speedy trial" thing though.

7/9/2010 4:49:13 PM

If a madman kills 10,000,000 people...and you advocate killing the madman...you're just as big a monster as he is!!11!1111111

7/9/2010 4:49:18 PM

Killing is killing.

^That would also be the difference between a murderer and a conqueror.

[Edited on July 9, 2010 at 4:51 PM. Reason : ]

7/9/2010 4:50:47 PM

Killing a madman = saving innocent lives who he would eventually kill

Its sad you value the life of one madman over the lives of multiple innocent people

and killing is not always "killing"

theres obviously a major difference in me walking into a restaurant and shooting people for no good reason, versus me being in my house, having a robber break in with a gun, and me killing him in self defense

[Edited on July 9, 2010 at 4:54 PM. Reason : .]

7/9/2010 4:52:40 PM

Ah, so we're in minority report territory now? The Department of Precrime?

We should kill him so he won't (possibly) kill (maybe) some people that (we think) might happen in the future?

[Edited on July 9, 2010 at 4:58 PM. Reason : ]

7/9/2010 4:57:42 PM

no you kill him because he murdered a bunch of people

let me guess, you would be opposed to someone killing the VT shooter after he killed 5 people because he (probably) might not possibly (maybe) kill more people in the future

you're all like NAAA MAAAN, A LIFE IS A LIFE AND THE LIFE OF A CRAZED KILLER IS JUST AS PRECIOUS AS THE INNOCENT PEOPLE HE KILLS

but seriously i'm fairly certain that we're going to agree to disagree, so enjoy your weekend

[Edited on July 9, 2010 at 5:05 PM. Reason : .]

7/9/2010 5:02:33 PM

Quote :

"i'm in favor of a juror from the trial being randomly selected to throw the switch...that way you can't be chickenshit and recommend the death penalty unless you're serious enough in your convictions to do it yourself."

Although I don't agree with capital punishment, this is something I could get behind, haha.

7/9/2010 5:22:27 PM

ron white quote was completely missed.

7/9/2010 5:33:02 PM

I'm emphatically in favor of it in many circumstances.

7/10/2010 4:21:16 PM

Since this thread was a TSB poll, I thought it might be interesting compare it to the results of this new poll of North Carolinians:

http://deathwatch.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/new-poll-shows-nc-residents-oppose-unfair-expensive-death-penalty/

Quote :

"More than two-thirds of North Carolinians believe executions should be halted in the wake of the SBI scandal, 58% percent believe a finding of racial bias should prohibit an execution, and more than two-thirds are willing to consider ending the death penalty due to the high cost of capital punishment, a new poll shows."

Quote :

"Among the key findings were: - Sixty-eight percent of people surveyed said executions should be halted until problems with blood tests at the State Bureau of Investigation are fully investigated. - Fifty-eight percent said defendants should not be executed if a judge finds that racial bias played a role in their trials. - Sixty-four percent of respondents supported replacing the death penalty with life in prison without parole or were not sure whether it was a good idea to continue using the death penalty in light of the more than 11 million dollar per year extra cost of the death penalty."

[Edited on December 13, 2010 at 6:23 PM. Reason : .]

12/13/2010 6:22:15 PM

Seems like a no-brainer if they can save $11 million, this should be one of the first things cut.

12/13/2010 6:47:58 PM

Yes, a website called "death watch" is certainly high up on my list of reliable sources.

Quote :

"Public Policy Polling surveyed 517 North Carolina voters between Nov. 19 and Nov. 21"

Nearly 520 people asked during a two day period? I'm sold.

Look, they identify some important areas, but they don't do it without obvious bias. Yeah, we should improve blood tests. Yeah, we should eliminate racial bias -- and, if I may, we should probably execute anybody demonstrated to have encouraged racial bias in this area. The third statistic you quotes is the most absurd -- it lumps together two very different groups of people, those who "supported replacing the death penalty with life in prison" and those who "were not sure whether it was a good idea to continue using the death penalty" in light of what I suspect was more than one variable (cost), and who aside from which miss the point. Whether the death penalty is cheaper than life in prison, in absolute terms, has long been settled: life in prison is cheaper. Anti-execution advocates tend to fail to mention that this is because of the trial costs related to death-penalty cases, but whatever, even I -- a champion defender of execution -- will freely admit that under the current system it's cheaper to toss them in jail.

What is never, ever considered by the opposition is the human cost in failing to terminate people that obviously need terminating. And of course, many will be outraged by that statement.

But I've sat here and elsewhere for years, and I've heard the same bullshit...

"Normally I'm against the death penalty, but for...

the people that killed that UNC Student President
Osama bin Laden
the dude that kidnapped Elizabeth Smart
Jeff Dahmer (who is dead but I don't hear a lot of wailing and moaning over)
various other shitty people

[that person] I'd make an exception."

Over and over again, I hear people who don't want to execute people in really dubious situations. I agree with those opponents. What I don't agree with is the idea that some day we catch a mass murderer and have to sit around housing him for the rest of his natural life. Americans are historically willing to pay to eliminate a threat rather than to preserve one. If I'm doing my math right (and I may not be, please correct me) an 11 million dollar difference applied to 300 million people is less than four dollars. Even if you discount all the nonvoters I'll bet you'll come up with a populace more than willing to pay their share to see Tim McVeigh go to the fucking death table.

I don't want to execute some dude who got arrested on a count of being black near a murder site. I certainly wouldn't mind executing the people who do want to do that, nor am I opposed to needling the motherfuckers behind 9/11, the DC sniper attacks, the Ft. Hood Shooting, or countless other cases where it's less a matter of evidence and more a matter of whether we can kill them.

12/14/2010 3:23:20 AM

Quote :

"What I don't agree with is the idea that some day we catch a mass murderer and have to sit around housing him for the rest of his natural life. Americans are historically willing to pay to eliminate a threat rather than to preserve one. If I'm doing my math right (and I may not be, please correct me) an 11 million dollar difference applied to 300 million people is less than four dollars. Even if you discount all the nonvoters I'll bet you'll come up with a populace more than willing to pay their share to see Tim McVeigh go to the fucking death table. "

you're ignoring the population of people who don't like the death penalty on moral grounds. i don't think that murder is ever ok, even when it is sanctioned by a judicial system or popular support. i don't care how clear the evidence is or if there is absolutely no doubt, i don't think taking a life is morally defensible.

12/14/2010 3:52:27 AM

^ Excellent post.

I still just don't understand how one can claim any moral/relative superiority to a murderer by killing them.

12/14/2010 4:20:13 AM

Quote :

"you're ignoring the population of people who don't like the death penalty on moral grounds."

I addressed a large number of that crowd specifically.

Turns out that your camp has a lot of fair weather friends who are all about opposing the death penalty until it comes to those guys that murdered the UNC girl, or to Osama, or to so on and so forth. All the time I'm seeing this pathetic disclaimer, "Normally I'm opposed to it but in this case..."

Quote :

"i don't think taking a life is morally defensible."

So you wouldn't kill a person in self-defense? You've got a gun and I come at you with a knife, you just let me stab you? What if it's your wife/kid/girlfriend/whoever I'm coming after? What if I'm going to rape them? You don't pull the trigger?

The question here being, of course, whether taking a life is ever morally defensible. I'm not trying to argue moral equivalency between executing a person and acting in self defense, but I am attacking your assertion that taking a life is morally indefensible. I bet that under the right circumstances you could defend the everloving shit out of it. And if I can poke a hole in that then maybe, just maybe, we can operate on a level above the hippie-dippie bullshit of "But violence is always wrong, maaaaaan."

12/14/2010 5:04:17 AM

Quote :

"Turns out that your camp has a lot of fair weather friends who are all about opposing the death penalty until it comes to those guys that murdered the UNC girl, or to Osama, or to so on and so forth. All the time I'm seeing this pathetic disclaimer, "Normally I'm opposed to it but in this case..." "

except that is not the "camp" i am talking about. you can't dismiss a group by pointing to another group, there are plenty of people who don't like it in any situation.

Quote :

"So you wouldn't kill a person in self-defense? You've got a gun and I come at you with a knife, you just let me stab you? What if it's your wife/kid/girlfriend/whoever I'm coming after? What if I'm going to rape them? You don't pull the trigger?"

some people are purely pacifists and would not fight back and should not be ignored, i am not in that group though (hard to be when you are carrying a firearm). self defense is different than the cold-blooded taking of a life; when you are defending yourself (or by extension, another) you have the moral obligation to use only necessary force to end the threat similar to the concept of jus ad bellum. perhaps i should have been more precise: the cold-blooded taking of a life for revenge or retaliation is morally indefensible.

looking back through the thread just now i'll go ahead and preemptively respond to a few responses i will get:
the next response will be an assertion that the death penalty is analogous to self defense. this argument might have merit in a lawless society where no other recourse for removing the threat is available; in this society we have the option of incarceration, and can even incarcerate someone in solitary confinement. the next response will be that confinement isn't perfect or that our prisons are overcrowded; these are logistical issues. in an argument of morals, logistics should not be allowed to sway one's morals. logistical issues can be fixed and improved (and it seems someone has even posted evidence showing the threat is mostly nonexistent anyways), but morality transcends logistical complications and should not be changed for the sake of convenience.

the real issue here comes down to the purpose of the death penalty: what is the purpose and goal of the death penalty? what is the purpose of punishing people of a crime in general? i would contend that the evidence indicates that the only logical purpose of the death penalty is for revenge. people might use phrases like "closure" to disguise it, but ultimately it is revenge. the proponents of the death penalty are quick to pose terrible "what if" questions so that opponents can empathize with families and friends of victims, but responses like this miss the point entirely. of course most people would be angry; i unfortunately can speak with authority on at least my experience with this, and anger is one of many emotions that are felt and expressed. its completely natural to have this reaction, to want the person to experience as much pain and suffering as they can; and there is nothing immoral in this type of emotional response... until emotions are expressed as actions. feeling angry is natural, understandable, and perfectly moral; using that anger as justification to take a life is not.




[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 5:46 AM. Reason : more]

12/14/2010 5:23:14 AM

Quote :

"what is the purpose and goal of the death penalty? what is the purpose of punishing people of a crime in general? "

The purpose should be to deter people from committing crimes that are destructive to both individuals and/or society. There's a shitload of corruption and temptations in society and the punishments are not severe enough, imo. If people have nothing to fear, what do they have to lose? When reward outweighs the risk, criminals thrive.

In regards to the death penatly, if you value your life, you'll be more inclined to do the right thing, or rather avoid doing the wrong thing(s). The death penalty is to control the population by fear. Now that's not to discount those that are afraid of death and/or value their life yet comit horrendous acts against others/society. I suppose it could be said that if one doesn't value/respect their own life or the live's of others in their society, then they should not be part of said society. Banishment isn't always enough, as they are still around to be a potential threat in the future. The "smart" thing to do would be to eliminate the threat so that society can function safely and efficiently. You can't feel completely safe if you're always looking over your shoulder...

People are punished because they are disruptive/destructive to society. Society defines what is disruptive/destructive, however, I am sure we can all agree on several fundamentals that every living being is entitled to.. Anything past that is surely up for debate and dependent on the society's culture and beliefs... Basically, obey the "rules" and you'll be left alone and do just fine. Punishments help set/define a standard of living that goes beyond right and wrong. A society needs a sturdy foundation to grow and be strong. Punishing people of crimes are essential in laying that foundation. Discipline deters people from making wrong decisions. Take Hurricane Katrina for example. As disciplinary actions for criminal activity dimished, people (even ordinary people who otherwise would not commit crimes) stole goods, raped, and pillaged. Even police officers were caught looting because they thought they could get away with it! Put when laws were in place prior to Katrina, some (if not most) of these people would not have even thought of committing such distasteful acts. As I mentioned before... Risk versus Reward...

[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 6:03 AM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 5:57:23 AM

Quote :

"The purpose should be to deter people from committing crimes that are destructive to both individuals and/or society."

i asked that as an interesting side-note, the purpose setup by law in this state (and similar to many others) is to promote public safety through rehabilitation. kinda interesting.

Quote :

"In regards to the death penatly, if you value your life, you'll be more inclined to do the right thing, or rather avoid doing the wrong thing(s). The death penalty is to control the population by fear."

if the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent does that change your argument? i ask because it is, and supporting evidence is easy to find and I would be happy to post some I'm just curious if it would make a difference to you before i take the time.

Quote :

"Banishment isn't always enough, as they are still around to be a potential threat in the future. "

death penalty or banishment? where did this false dilemma fallacy come from? our current best option is life imprisonment without parole and violent criminals can be segregated out.

Quote :

"Society defines what is disruptive/destructive, however, I am sure we can all agree on several fundamentals that every living being is entitled to.. "

the problem is that this agreement is not so simple, because i contend that every living person is entitled to life and you are saying it can be taken away.

[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 6:38 AM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 6:36:44 AM

Quote :

"if the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent does that change your argument? i ask because it is, and supporting evidence is easy to find and I would be happy to post some I'm just curious if it would make a difference to you before i take the time."

Is deterrence the only reason we punish criminals? Does prison work as a deterrent? Should we stop putting people in prison because it's not an effective deterrent?

Quote :

"the problem is that this agreement is not so simple, because i contend that every living person is entitled to life and you are saying it can be taken away. "

My philosophy is simliar. Every living person is entitled to life until they break this rule. There are things that you can do to other people that forfeit your entitlement to life. Murderers and rapists do not deserve to live.


[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 8:59 AM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 8:57:15 AM

Quote :

"Is deterrence the only reason we punish criminals? Does prison work as a deterrent? Should we stop putting people in prison because it's not an effective deterrent?"

follow along please:

rbrthwrd said:

Quote :

"the real issue here comes down to the purpose of the death penalty: what is the purpose and goal of the death penalty?"

and

Quote :

"i would contend that the evidence indicates that the only logical purpose of the death penalty is for revenge."

then shmorri2 said:

Quote :

"... The death penalty is to control the population by fear."

to which rbrthwrd said:

Quote :

"if the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent does that change your argument? i ask because it is, and supporting evidence is easy to find and I would be happy to post some I'm just curious if it would make a difference to you before i take the time."

follow that?

12/14/2010 9:35:03 AM

"i would contend that the evidence indicates that the only logical purpose of the death penalty is for revenge."

Your contention is hollow. The death penalty has multiple purposes. Retribution is one. Incapacitation is another. Deterrence is another. In fact, it has pretty much the exact same purpose as all criminal punishment, except for obviously rehabilitation and probably restitution (though if my child were raped and murdered, I would feel at least somewhat closer to normal if that scum didn't get to breathe another breath).

My question to you is that if you think the fact that it's not an effective deterrent is a reason to abolish it, what is the purpose of punishing criminals at all? Obviously punishment does not deter other criminals effectively. Obviously recidivism is rampant. If one of your objections to the death penalty is its effectiveness as a deterrent then you have a serious problem to deal with in all criminal punishment.

12/14/2010 10:05:19 AM

I do not understand why Republicans and libertarians want the state to have the power to run about executing people.

12/14/2010 10:05:34 AM

^saves money, gets rid of a problem.

12/14/2010 10:08:38 AM

Not sure I'd label myself either a Republican or a Libertarian. Philosophically I just prefer that people get punished for crimes they commit. Some crimes deserve death because they illustrate that the perpetrator has no regard for human life. Such people are a blight on our planet.

Am I saying that the system is perfect and should not be under a constant state of improvement and reform? No. Am I saying I would object to suspending capital punishment if evidence existed that indicated it was corrupt and needed massive reform? No. But my moral philosophy demands punishment for actions committed against other people. Some crimes deserve the maximum punishment.

12/14/2010 10:10:49 AM

Quote :

"Your contention is hollow. The death penalty has multiple purposes. Retribution is one. Incapacitation is another. Deterrence is another. "

deterrence does not work, other options for incapacitation. thus... revenge. contention solid.

Quote :

"Some crimes deserve death because they illustrate that the perpetrator has no regard for human life."

why? why would having no regard for human life ever be the answer for someone having no regard for human life? not everyone is going to accept this as fact so you are going to need to establish some kind of moral argument supporting it. right now you have a circular logic problem.

-the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for some crimes
-why?
-because the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for some crimes

?? wat


[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 10:24 AM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 10:17:28 AM

^^^It does not save money or get rid of problems.

^^I wasn't talking to you, but I would like to be talking to you. I think rbrthwrd is big on this argument so I'll let him finish.

[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 10:19 AM. Reason : ]

12/14/2010 10:18:37 AM

also,

Quote :

" My question to you is that if you think the fact that it's not an effective deterrent is a reason to abolish it"

i have never made this argument. it's true that it is not a deterrent, but it should be abolished because:

Quote :

"the cold-blooded taking of a life for revenge or retaliation is morally indefensible."

i feel like i'm laying out my arguments fairly clearly, read through my posts and let me know where you are getting hung up and i can try to expand

12/14/2010 10:22:00 AM

Quote :

"why? why would having no regard for human life ever be the answer for someone having no regard for human life?"

Because the entitlement to life is something that can be lost. A murderer ceases to have this entitlement. They become less than a person. They have illustrated that they cannot exist along with other humans and in order for our species to thrive (which presumably is the goal of any moral system) we must coexist successfully in our finite amount of space.

Quote :

"-the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for some crimes -why? -because the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for some crimes ?? wat "

It's a moral judgment. It has exactly the same amount of evidences as:

Quote :

""the cold-blooded taking of a life for revenge or retaliation is morally indefensible.""

Should I respond to your moral judgments with ??wat?

12/14/2010 10:27:39 AM

right now i'm just trying to get everyone to admit that the only logical reasoning for it is retribution/revenge/closure to enter into my findings of fact

[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 10:32 AM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 10:29:05 AM

Quote :

"it's true that it is not a deterrent"

Not true. I have heard anecdotes of criminals attempting to escape the police only to drop their gun once it became clear their only other option was to fire on the police.

While it is true that criminals often act under the assumption they will not get caught, so therefore the penalties don't matter, but to suggest they never think about them is absurd. On the margin, incentives do matter.

12/14/2010 10:31:17 AM

i mean if we are arguing anecdotes i can just take my ball and go home

12/14/2010 10:32:22 AM

I told you exactly what the purpose is: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and possibly restitution.

It is as least as effective of a deterrent as every other punishment is (possibly not very).
It is obviously an extremely effective retribution and incapacitant.
I won't argue restitution because that's purely emotional restitution and is probably better defined as retribution.

[Edited on December 14, 2010 at 10:33 AM. Reason : .]

12/14/2010 10:32:49 AM

ok, so i see i need to show that it is not a deterrent. can you admit that there are other options for incapacitation?

12/14/2010 10:34:07 AM

Quote :

"i mean if we are arguing anecdotes i can just take my ball and go home"

If that is what you want to do. You set yourself an impossible position of telling us what our position should be. In some way the death penalty trades (hopefully) guilty lives for innocent lives through deterrence. You can argue the death penalty accidentally kills more people than it saves, but you cannot argue that the dis-incentive of death never mattered to anyone ever.

That said, I agree with abolishing the death penalty. I accept doing so with eliminate a deterrence and therefore cost innocent lives, I accept it will allow those that would have been executed to commit crimes in the future (escape, prison assault/murder, etc), I accept it will punish the families of victims and society at large by depriving them of both retribution and piece of mind, but all these costs are worth the benefits if it stops the state from ever executing a single innocent person.

12/14/2010 10:44:46 AM

100% opposed to the death penalty.

12/14/2010 10:49:29 AM

Quote :

"I do not understand why Republicans and libertarians want the state to have the power to run about executing people."

12/14/2010 10:49:57 AM

Quote :

"In some way the death penalty trades (hopefully) guilty lives for innocent lives through deterrence. You can argue the death penalty accidentally kills more people than it saves, but you cannot argue that the dis-incentive of death never mattered to anyone ever. "

apparently no one here ever reads anything anyone else writes, i never said any of these things and pretty clearly spelled out how my argument was laid out. the first step involved showing that the only reason for the death penalty is for revenge, this must be in fact before i can establish a moral argument showing why that is indefensible. as a quick summary of all the "WORDS" I wrote before ( that were apparently tl,dr), first I will show ho the death penalty is not a deterrent using actual stuff instead of anecdotes and, if it is not accepted as fact, i will show how the death penalty is not the only pathway to incapacitation. after establishing that the only remaining reason for the death penalty is revenge, then i can begin laying out my moral argument. i can't do so before then because i will likely get pulled into some kind of aaronburro circular, semantics, bashing my head into a wall type of argument that is really beneath any of my efforts.

12/14/2010 10:56:04 AM

Quote :

"That said, I agree with abolishing the death penalty. I accept doing so with eliminate a deterrence and therefore cost innocent lives, I accept it will allow those that would have been executed to commit crimes in the future (escape, prison assault/murder, etc), I accept it will punish the families of victims and society at large by depriving them of both retribution and piece of mind, but all these costs are worth the benefits if it stops the state from ever executing a single innocent person."

And this is a perfectly valid moral judgment. That I disagree with.

12/14/2010 10:58:27 AM

the government is too stupid and too evil to properly decide the fate of anyone.

12/14/2010 11:13:03 AM

Quote :

"It does not save money or get rid of problems. "

It should and it does

I dont think you should put someone down on weak evidence, but there are a ton of crimes where they are caught in the act or admit they did it or have conclusive evidence. In those cases just take them out of one room and into the next room.

The problem with it not being the deterrent is bc it isnt swift. THe people being put down now no one remembers their crimes. imo. People dont think about 10+ yrs in teh future. Hell how many people in their 20s save for retirement? gotta speed it up for the ones you know are guilty or it to be a deterrence. imo

12/14/2010 11:17:06 AM

The death penalty has been in place in society for a long as time for a long range of crimes and varying degrees in terms of time between conviction and execution. Yet, somehow, as a society we haven't stopped murders and other crimes.

Why is that? Because there is no such thing as a deterrent to crime.

12/14/2010 11:45:05 AM

I don't think that argument is sound. There may be no such thing as a 100% effective deterrent to crime, but I do think that if there were no criminal justice system there would be a lot more offenses against other people.

12/14/2010 11:49:45 AM

Yeah sure, if you eliminate any and all possible means for punishment, but that isn't realistic and as such doesn't really belong in the discussion.

12/14/2010 12:00:54 PM

Well, it pretty well counters "there is no such thing as a deterrent to crime."

Something doesn't have to be 100% effective to be called a deterrent, was only my point.

12/14/2010 12:07:45 PM