In Courthouses where the Judge has the power to impose the Death Penalty for henious crimes, such as the man who murdered a family of four through bludgeoning them to death, the sentence should be carried out at once, without Appeals or Re-trials. The courthouse should have a basement where this can be carried out, and it should be done within minutes after passing the Death Penalty, with the convicted murderer being escorted to the chamber and allowing him to make one phone call before the lethal gas is introduced. This is Justice for the Crime committed, not like allowing the Manson Gang to live for a half-century after their crimes, only to die of old age on California's so-called Death Row. Hal
I rarely look at someone on death row and feel sorry for them. People seem to forget the horror their victims went thru and the depth of hurt the families and friends are left with. If I were a murderer who didn't seem to be able to control myself, I would consider swift justice societies way of doing me the favor of no longer having to live with my evil self. I do realize lots of people are torn on this subject and I respect, and understand, their way of rationalizing against the death penalty. But you have to ask yourself it that person is worth the $60,000 + yearly to keep them in prison for life. Hate to put a price on human life, but that money could be better spent elsewhere.
It is not uncommon that people who are sentenced to death are later exonerated and, in some cases, proven to have been innocent of the crime they were convicted of. I don't weep for guilty people who are executed either but I cannot help but be concerned for those who were innocent. American justice may be superior to that in many other countries but it is far from perfect. Investigations are about making arrests, and prosecutions are about winning court cases, and not necessarily about serving the cause of justice.
My problem with your statement is: There are too many innocents who have been wrongfully convicted or railroaded. Give me a confession in open court or positive DNA evidence and I'll agree. Sorry @Ken Anderson, we were responding at the same time.
OK, Ken...let's say the the Death Penalty is "Killing Someone". Gee...this makes it just as evil as the Murderer's crime, doesn't it? Why kill the Murderer...what did they do wrong? Hal
I don't even think anyone should be in prison for life without proper DNA or strong forensic evidence. I was thinking more in terms of serial killers or just a totally brutal murderer. I think it all has to be 'without a shadow of a doubt' evidence. 10 years of appeals after it's been proven seems like a waste of money.
My point in that was that we should call things what they are. The phrase "administering the death penalty" is intended to move us a few steps away from what's really going on. We're killing someone for killing someone, the idea being that he deserves to die because he killed someone. If he was, in fact, guilty of killing someone, he may have believed that person deserved to die too. That's assuming something that we shouldn't assume, which is that he was really guilty of the crime. That's the biggest problem. Our legal system isn't designed to seek justice; it's designed to make arrests and win prosecutions.
IMO, if someone is found guilty of heinous murder beyond a reasonable doubt, they should be killed, executed, whatever you choose to call it. I agree with @Hal Pollner about the Manson gang. There was absolutely no doubt that they were guilty. They should have been shot at dawn the next day.
@Ken Anderson Because the "someone" we are administering to is possibly a vicious, heinous, uncaring psychopathic animal, yet deserving of "humane" consideration. Or, he may be innocent. Frank
That may well be and, when that's the case, I don't miss him, which is not the same thing as saying that I support the right to kill him. There is that too, and that's probably the greater argument.
The death penalty option has elicited many confessions when it is taken off the table, so that is a good thing. I think it should be reserved for torture, serial killers, mass murderers and other heinous crimes. I also think ANY criminal should be entitled to one DNA evaluation at the government's expense to ascertain guilt or innocence, if pertinent.
Let’s see. Two scenarios. 1. A man comes into my house in the middle of the evening. I do not know if he is armed or not but he is in the wrong place at the wrong time and I kill him. Without a blink of the eye, the law and the general public say that the guy got what he deserved. The view of others is that I was within my rights and the killing was [morally and ethically] acceptable. 2. A man openly kills 3 people on the street. There are several witnesses to the act but yet, when he is convicted of the crime, the law and the public say that he must be given the chance to appeal a death sentence. The question of whether or not to send the convicted man home to meet his maker is now a question of morality and ethics. Huh? In the first scenario, there are no questions as to whether the perpetrator is sober, drunk, high, had a lousy childhood or even why he was there. Wrong place, wrong time and bang....he’s dead. In the second case, a man is obviously wrong but yet his defense is going to bring out his drunk mama, missing in action dad, the fact that he was on steroids or some such and it wasn’t his fault but someone else’s hence a nice long stay at the pokie whilst appealing his sentence several times throughout several years. Whether the man was as sane as the pope or bat crap crazy shouldn’t make any difference. If the first scenario is okay, the second scenario should be likened unto the first. Bang...dead. Now, if there really is a question as to whether a person actually committed the crime, I’m all for the added appeals but for those who are guilty without any shadow of a doubt and if capital punishment is the law of the land, then so be it.
While I know what you're getting at, Bobby, there is a crucial difference between the two scenarios. In most cases, you are considered to be justified in killing someone only when you have a reasonable reason to fear for your own life. Depending on the state, the police, the jury, the judge, and the media outcry, which can and does affect the verdict of the jury and the decisions of the judge, you may or may not be found clear of any crime, but central to this is usually the idea that you were protecting yourself and your family. That's not the case after someone has been arrested and imprisoned.
Oh, I realize all of the ramifications involved but when I started thinking in my usual philosophical way about the moral value of killing anyone for whatever reason and the equivalent ethics involved with each, my brain went from one scenario to many others and challenged each one on a differential scale. Certainly, the Noaic edict of Blood for Blood seems to be in question on most fronts in our legal system (even though it’s a Biblical stance) but then again, there are many other reasons for killing someone that are fully justified. One such bit of justification is that I was sent to another country to kill people and wreck things. Now, since my country told me to go and do it, it was okay. This country wasn’t being assaulted and thusly were not protecting our property but someone said do it so we did and it was legally approved. So many scenarios, so many ways of looking at things but the bottom line is who is justified and under what circumstance is that justification found to be ethically valid? Is capital punishment or rather, the judicial edict of ending another’s life an ethical premise and if it isn’t, then what of several other circumstances and why are they okay? Or not? Murder is murder, thievery is thievery, rape is rape and I really do not see many gray areas involved in each but obviously, according to our judicial system, there is especially when murder is demoted to justified killing which in most cases, is counted as ethical. Is balancing the books via the electric chair a valid reason for killing and if so, then how is it that a man will be charged with murder for killing the man who killed and raped his wife not? Even if he is acquitted in a court of law, did he not take another’s life? And what if he is not acquitted? Did he not do the same that the electric chair would do? I could go all day into the philosophical aspects and probably list at least 25 reasons for and against capital punishment but alas, until all of man’s inhumanity to man is solved, we have to keep the books balanced the best we know how which at present, is erred in so many ways.