Pro Death Penalty or Not???

Al B

There are other ways to protect society than a death penalty, like a solitary prison life with no tv, no recreation, and locked down 24 hours a day. If you check the dollar amounts, it costs more for a death sentence than it does to lock a person up for the rest of their lives.
the biggest argument against a death penalty though is the fact that over 100 people on death row have been found to be innocent by using DNA evidence
In cases where DNA is used for conviction, there is still a chance for misuse since there was one case where a lab technicion was manufacturing the test results to suit the prosecutors rather than finding out what the truth was.
Eye witness evidence has been shown to not be as dependable as it should be for conviction in many cases so there is room for error there as well.
If we depend upon expert testimony, in the old case of Sam Shephard, in Ohio, the expert testified that a blood stain was of a medical tool used to kill Marilyn Shephard but in a second trial years later it was found that no where in the world
was there a medical tool capable of making that blood stain and that the expert had stated that because he had already decided that Shephard was guilty.
Given all these rooms for error, it is better to lock a convicted person up in a facility where there in no chance for excape than to execute an innocent person, as we have already done so many times in this country.

j dog

most of the time i vote "no"...

there is always life in prison, eh??

Jason

Not. How many innocent people have been released due to DNA? How many innocents have we MURDERED before DNA?

UTOPIA OR BUST,

death penalty has never stopped a crime in thousands of years. i know someone here says it did reduce crimes but i can say this in europe where the death sentence could have been for anything such a robbing an apple not a century and half ago it did not stop much crime.

michaell

i do not approve of the death penalty. there is no evidence that capital punishment prevents any crime. the death penalty is a severe form of retribution and it has many problems associated with it. if new evidence is ever found which proves that someone is not guilty, there is no redress possible if they have been executed.

Mildred J. Michalczyk

I vote no to death penalty. I do not think anyone has the right to take another's life. Life in prison without parole, I feel, is a satisfactory punishment. It does not remove the criminal from society or give the victim's family revenge or as much of a sense of closure as does the death penalty, so there are alot of reasons to support the death penalty; but I am just against it. I think this is a subject of personal conscience and there is no right or wrong answer.

Serena

Pro. I believe that someone who kills another human being on purpose and shows no remorse, that they are beyond man's ability to rehabilitate them. Anyone who kills as an accident that is purely an accident shouldn't be charged. But, anyone who kills as an accident that was caused by negligent behavior (like drunk driving or neglect of a baby) should be charged according to the law.

cutsie_dread

I don't agree with the death penalty. To execute a person is society's easy and cheap way. If we don't execute felons it challenges us to think more and react less and that is what most people do not want to do.

Ontheotherhand

In abstract, I agree with capital punishment. But, not as it's used in the US. I could support capital punishment, but ONLY if every person convicted of the capital offense is executed. But, when it's only one out of a thousand; I can't. Execute EVERY person convicted, or none.

Susan S

You don't have to excuse brutal crimes or want the criminals who commit them to avoid a harsh punishment to ask whether the death penalty prevents or even reduces crime and whether it risks killing innocent people.

What about the risk of executing innocent people?
124 people on death rows have been released with evidence of their innocence and DNA is available in less than 10% of all homicides and canâ€™t guarantee we wonâ€™t execute innocent people.

Doesn't the death penalty prevent others from committing murder?
No reputable study shows the death penalty to be a deterrent. To be a deterrent a punishment must be sure and swift. The death penalty is neither. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in states that do not.

So, what are the alternatives?
Life without parole is now on the books in 48 states. It means what it says. It is sure and swift and rarely appealed. Life without parole is less expensive than the death penalty.

But isn't the death penalty cheaper than keeping criminals in prison?
The death penalty costs much more than life in prison, mostly because of the legal process which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people.

What about the very worst crimes?
The death penalty isnâ€™t reserved for the â€œworst of the worst,â€ but rather for defendants with the worst lawyers. When is the last time a wealthy person was sentenced to death, let alone executed??

Doesn't the death penalty help families of murder victims?
Not necessarily. Murder victim family members across the country argue that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is the right alternative.

So, why don't we speed up the process?
Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. If the process is speeded up we are sure to execute an innocent person.

www.scapegoatz.com

I am pro as long as the trial was fair, and there was several witnesses.

Adam B

I think the death penalty should be reserved only for the most heinous of crimes (genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity). Even for murder, I think life imprisonment is preferable. And especially since the state court systems have shown themselves unable to reliably determine who is guilty and who is innocent, sending convicts to their death seriously risks killing innocent people.

mild_irritant

If the person plead guilty in court - yes - pro.

Otherwise no.

As an advanced society we have an obligation not to kill people who might be innocent - no matter how remote that possibility might be.

Better safe than sorry.

ncrawler1

I am in favor of it, even if it is never enacted, because it gives prosecutors more options. Let's take two serial killers, one in a death penalty state, one not. In the DPS, the prosecutors can offer him life without parole if he pleads guilty, to decrease the number of trials. In the NDPS, they have to offer him, unless they just want to go to trial, something less than life.

So, with no death penalty, you will either have more trials going on, or more killers going free, albeit after a long time.

How_Would_I_Know

1) You have to go back something like 150 years to find an innocent person executed in the US, and since then we've become a whole lot more careful on evidence, especially with the advent of DNA checking. In short, innocent people do NOT get executed.

2) According to recent studies each execution prevents up to 16 murders. If you look at a graph of murder rate vs execution you'll see the number of murders in the US explode when executions were put on hold.. and then fall rapidly when executions started again. Clearly anybody who denies the deterrent effect it brings has not done their homework.

3) Finally, it is the ONLY way to truly bring justice to a murder case. Justice is about balancing the equations.. to balance a murder the murderer must pay with his/her life.

proud nerd

Absolutely not. Don't get me wrong - if someone hurt one of my children, I would want them dead. But that doesn't mean it's right to kill them. Our judicial system is NOT there to take revenge, and a civilized society should not be doing such things. Look at it this way - everyone, at some point, has had an overwhelming need to punch someone. Whether or not they deserve it, it's NOT okay to just walk up and hit someone. Same goes for capital punishment. Besides, it seems that every other day we hear about someone who was falsely accused and convicted of a crime. What happens if we kill the wrong person? The "deterrent" argument is often used, but study after study has found that the death penalty does NOT work to deter crime.
The solution to our crime problem is not to just do away with the offenders. Instead, we need to do 3 things: 1. Make prison a PUNISHMENT....no TV, minimal air conditioning and heat ( just enough that it's healthy, not comfortable), no conjugal visits, etc. That would cut down on repeat offenders. 2. focus more on rehab. I understand that not all prisoners can be rehabilitated. But some can, and if we want a safe society, we should try. 3. We should be able to PERMANENTLY revoke the parental rights of anyone who is not taking care of their kid. I don't believe that being abused as a child is an excuse for violent crime, but I do think it contributes.
In short, if individuals do not have the right to take someone else's life, neither should the government.

The Thing

I believe that the death penalty is right because it represents society protecting the rights of the victim who can no longer speak for themselves...I don't really care about deterrence or giving the family closure--I see it as society's way of bringing the closest approximation of justice that we are able to provide.

New Dad

All States have a death penalty....it's just some States budget for it BEFORE a person is born.
Does that simplify things?

happy wife and mum

No, but castration for paedophiles and an army-style hard labour tough regime in prison and no TVs or leisure time!

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