Quizzes & Puzzles22 mins ago
Anyone On The Fence About Capital Punishment?
137 Answers
I have traditionally been in favour of capital punishment though I sometimes waver. Those against it often do impress me with their reasoning and I get persuaded that maybe the state should never execute it's own citizens. Then a case like this comes along and I start to think that sometimes there are such depraved humans that it's a case of disposal of a pathogen rather than execution. No doubt AH will tell me that it's emotive and we should ignore the circumstances. Your Thoughts......
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I have never said, nor do I think, that we should 'ignore the circumstances' in a capital murder case.
What I have said, and continue to say, is that the law must be dispassionate in order to function properly, and that the emotive reaction to a crime should not impact the type of sentence decreed for it.
I am against state sponsored murder, always have been.
I lack the detachment to enable me to believe that a fellow human being should be deprived of their life because their actions have grossly offended my moral sensibilities.
That thinking leads to a future where that attitude stops being enacted only for capital murder crimes, and starts sliding down the offences list, and that leads to a vigilante system of law where only the brutal survive, at the expense of the vulnerable.
I am fully aware of the 'if he was a mad dog ...' argument, but that's the entire point. He is not a mad dog.
He should of course be imprisoned for the rest of his natural life, to prevent any recurrence of his crimes - exactly the same result as execution, but without the moral dilema of taking a life.
As for the much argued financial cost of keeping a lifer alive - that is the price we elect to pay in order to be a civilised society.
I fully expect the opposite view to follow - I merely respond in order to correct TTT's erroneous impression of my position.
I am very much in favour of CP as long as the following rules are in force.
1. There must be total certainty in guilt such as a plea of guilty, accompanied by as water tight set of evidence matters that can be seen.
2. The crime should be one of murder that was intended and must include emergency workers as a given.
3. Shocking murders such as the three little children in Southport or the triple murder of the two students and caretaker by Calcone.(sic)
4. If mental issues are conclusivly blamed it MUST be a full life sentence in a prison.
5. To achieve this a National referendum must be held.
Choice of dispatch will be choice of the State.
AH: "What I have said, and continue to say, is that the law must be dispassionate in order to function properly, and that the emotive reaction to a crime should not impact the type of sentence decreed for it." - I may not have worded it very well but that is what I meant by ignore the circumstances. I meant take the emotion out of one's personal feelings about the crime.
// If mental issues are conclusivly blamed it MUST be a full life sentence in a prison.//
And therein lies one big problem. The hand wringing liberals would spend years clamouring for their release and the State would probably cave in as it does to loud minorities.
I am all for the death penalty in the right case. First and foremost it must be pre meditated murder, second it must be proven beyond all doubt (and have 2 judges to confirm this).
dave - //
//Without a dispassionate and unemotional legal system, we revert back to mob justice with flaming torches and pitchforks. //
That's rather inflamatory & has little or nothing to do with whether capital punishment is available. //
I fail to see what is 'inflamatory' about that, and my point is clear - using emotion to make decisions about punishment leads to a previous time when mob rule was judge jury and executioner, and as i said, we have moved on from that, and I would not wish to return to it.
That would mean that the most self-righteous with the biggest mob behind them would have the power of life and death over people they believed had forfeited their right to a fair trial and a considered sentence.
davebro - // A-H you are attempting to divert a discussion about capital punishment into one about the breakdown of law and order. The two are unconnected. //
I am doing no such thing - that is your incorrect assumption about the point I am making.
I use the rather floris 'torches and pitchforks' metaphor to illustrate the way in which tha abandonment of a dispassionate legal system would lead ultimately to a vigilanet system which would be a retrograde step.
That would apply not only to capital punishment, but to the entire legal framework, since it is not practical to hand over one specifica aspect of law and punishment to the rule of emotion and outrage.
We are talking scenarios here, not literal situations, I hope I have made clear the difference for you.
YMB - //
I'm struggling to see where "mob rule" comes into this.
It would still be a Judge and Jury {(In my case 2 Judges) so where do the mob come in? //
In your scenario, it doesn't, but you are offering a different point.
Your perfectly reasonable scenario offers a framework for allowing capital punishment to return to the statue book.
My point refers to TTT's OP, when he suggests that I believe we should 'ignore' the circumstances of a crime.
As I pointed out, that is not what I believe - merely that the circumstances of a crime should not be linked to the moral and emotional reactions that a lot of peole use as a reason why capital punishment should return.
netherfield - // To Anyone who agrees to capital punishment: could you be the one one to open the trapdoor, push the syringe, fire the gun or push the button. //
Plenty of people in the grip of their personal moral and emotional outrage would advise their willingness to do just that.
Personally when it came to it, I doubt many, if any, would actually possess the ability to take the life of another human being.
//tha abandonment of a dispassionate legal system//
Sorry, I fail to see how the reintroduction of Capital punishment would lead to an abandonment of a dispassionate legal system. Judges simply would not allow that.
//could you be the one one to open the trapdoor.....//
Yes, dispatching evil would be no problem so long as the appropiate measures as outlined above were adhered to.
YMB - //
//Plenty of people in the grip of their personal moral and emotional outrage //
That is OFFENSIVE. Get a grip man, you are the one being very emotive. //
What's offensive about it, or 'emotive' about any of my posts?
I think your moral outrage is already affecting your ability to discuss this matter dispassionately, which is entirely the point I am making.
It's offensive because you are insinuating I (and others with the same view) are not capable of thinking straight.
There is nothing emotive about the way I feel about Capital Punishment. I believe for the right crime there is little point in keeping someone alive. They dispatched someone, often in terrible circumstances, without a care in the world. So an eye for an eye.
Others can have an opinion differnent to you, I know you can never accept that and you will undoubtedly go on to write post after post to get the last word like you normally do. So I will leave it at that as there is nothing more for me to say on the OP.
YMB - //
It's offensive because you are insinuating I (and others with the same view) are not capable of thinking straight.
There is nothing emotive about the way I feel about Capital Punishment. I believe for the right crime there is little point in keeping someone alive. They dispatched someone, often in terrible circumstances, without a care in the world. So an eye for an eye.
Others can have an opinion differnent to you, I know you can never accept that and you will undoubtedly go on to write post after post to get the last word like you normally do. So I will leave it at that as there is nothing more for me to say on the OP. //
I have discussed this issue many many times on the AB, and sooner or later, someone proves my point by getting all het up and assuming I am denigrating their position, because they have not understood the point I am making.
That is usually followed, often in the same post, with vague insults about my viewpoint, and me personally.
And that is exactly the point I am making, and you prove it with your response.
My position is, the laws of this country, about anything whatsoever, can only be made with a completely unemotional and detached attiude, because they moment emotions and personal feelings become involved, the concept of fairness is lost.
Facts must be weighed and considered without recourse to individual feelings, that is the only way a fair and just legal system can operate.
I believe that applies even more in the case of murder, where emotions and reactons run high, and the danger of feelings clouding judgement are highest.
I am not insulting anyone for thinking differently from me, that is the pleasure of free speech in a debate.
You however have decided to take the discussion into personal animosity, so it is to our mutual benefit that you are withdrawing from it.
@12:24
The police can be very persuasive. Once they've got a signed confession from a suspect the courts rarely overturn it.
Think back to the 'Pitchfork murders', a man confessed that he had murdered 2 young girls. If the crimes had been committed during the time of capital punishment he would have almost certainly have been hanged.
Yet he was innocent and it needed DNA testing to prove it.
Life for murder should mean life behind bars with no hope of ever being released
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