Capital Punishment

Call me an absolutist, but one wrongfully executed person is one too many. The state controls the means of violence. Somebody is found guilty, though the case is screwy. The prosecuting DA refuses to hear appeals, because the DA wants to have a cushy career in politics, and judges are likely in the DA's pocket. Guy's appeals go unanswered due to intransigence by those in the "justice" system, guy is executed. Four years later, it is proven that Guy didn't do it. The State is not guilty of wrongful imprisonment and murder. Good going, State.

Innocent until proven guilty is what these people in the so-called "justice system" say is the case. Sadly, it's guilty before proven innocent. Empirical evidence and personal observations lead me to the conclusion that justice is wishful thinking at best to an outright lie at worst. If the extinct art of seeing justice served was more important to the people in the system than personal ego, power lust, and greed, then maybe I might not be so forcefully against capital punishment. Here's the thing, we've been giving these exact people the power to take life legally. The people who get that power have abused it repeatedly.

Am I denying the barbarity of the crimes that end these people up in court? No. But if the state kills an innocent person, that's also murder, and equally heinous.
 
There is no question of this man's guilt and I'm guessing there will be less opposition in general to his sentence.

A jury has sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death. There was no visible reaction from Tsarnaev.

CNN Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin said a years-long appeal process is expected, but "the overwhelming likelihood is that he will die."

The jury's verdict marked the first time in the post-9/11 era that federal prosecutors have won the death penalty in a terrorism case. Tsarnaev will likely be sent to the federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana.
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http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/15/us/boston-bombing-tsarnaev-sentence/index.html

I'm not as familiar with federal executions as I am with state ones, the appeals process is probably less favorable to defendants but he'll still stay alive for quite some time.
 
High-Test
Call me an absolutist, but one wrongfully executed person is one too many. The state controls the means of violence. Somebody is found guilty, though the case is screwy. The prosecuting DA refuses to hear appeals, because the DA wants to have a cushy career in politics, and judges are likely in the DA's pocket. Guy's appeals go unanswered due to intransigence by those in the "justice" system, guy is executed. Four years later, it is proven that Guy didn't do it. The State is not guilty of wrongful imprisonment and murder. Good going, State.
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Yeah I tend to agree with this. I don't disagree with the death penalty on moral grounds, really it's no different in principle than if you shoot someone who's charging at you with a knife. For me I just prefer to be on the side of caution because as you mentioned one innocent person executed is one too many.
 
BobK
That's actually my biggest issue with the death penalty. As long as mistakes are made handling evidence, as long as there are prosecutors more interested in getting another conviction than truly seeing justice done, then there's too great a chance of innocents being sentenced to death.

The thing is, I'm fine with the concept of capital punishment. But only if we could be certain beyond all doubt that the accused did it.
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I can't help but wonder what effect allowing people on trial to choose to end their own lives would have on the way these processes play out. If "I did it, now kill me quick" was an option, along with "I didn't do it, now kill me quick", there might be a lot less for the vultures to feed on, and maybe more parties admitting guilt.

The first example that I came across in searching for a person confessing guilt and being executed was the case of Danny Rolling. It took twelve freakin' years from sentencing to get around to executing a man that confessed to murdering multiple people. Personally, if I wasn't guilty of a murder I was on trial for, I might consider bowing out, since I'm not always so keen on living life the way it is now, let alone living through what would be impending. If I was guilty, I'd want to be hung, electrocuted, shot, and lethally injected all at the same time, just to make a sure thing of it. It's win/win. I'm not forced to live through a protracted process that I might otherwise choose not to, and taxpayers wouldn't have to cover the cost of that process.

For those that think I should have to suffer through it (guilty or not), I'll think about it some more if you offer to foot the bill yourself.
 
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Capital punishment should be reserved for pedophiles.

One bullet, cheap, quick and easy.

This will save money as the pedophile who is not being supported by tax payers be it food in jail or unemployment benefits
This will save other possible victims from harm.
 
Grayfox
Capital punishment should be reserved for pedophiles.

One bullet, cheap, quick and easy.

This will save money as the pedophile who is not being supported by tax payers be it food in jail or unemployment benefits
This will save other possible victims from harm.
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Surely by that logic you should automatically add serial murderers, rapists and fraudsters to your list? You could probably go on to all the crimes that have re-offence patterns, which is possibly most.

What kind of pedophile? One who likes to look at pictures, one who likes to take pictures or one who likes to rape children - or is it all the same level of offence?
 
TenEightyOne
What kind of pedophile? One who likes to look at pictures, one who likes to take pictures or one who likes to rape children - or is it all the same level of offence?
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There's no smoke without fire. Best to do away with all of them, it's the only way to be sure. No need for a lengthy and expensive appeals process if they look like a "wrong 'un" presumably. Just think of the children.

I hope the kid who started this is using these for arguments at his debate. "Don't worry - we'll save money because we only execute the guilty ones" is one that I've seen coming up in these debates multiple times.
 
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UKMikey
There's no smoke without fire. Best to do away with all of them, it's the only way to be sure. No need for a lengthy and expensive appeals process if they look like a "wrong 'un" presumably. Just think of the children.
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So let me get this straight. There's some poor unfortunate soul out there who has a predilection for children that he (or she) has never acted on, and in fact is in councelling to help deal with this issue. And you want to kill him (or her). Gotcha. After all, whether or not they've done anything, they're still pedophiles; just ask any mental health expert.
 
BobK
So let me get this straight. There's some poor unfortunate soul out there who has a predilection for children that he (or she) has never acted on, and in fact is in councelling to help deal with this issue. And you want to kill him (or her). Gotcha. After all, whether or not they've done anything, they're still pedophiles; just ask any mental health expert.
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I'm fairly sure that was sarcasm.
 
Grayfox
Capital punishment should be reserved for pedophiles.

One bullet, cheap, quick and easy.
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Self-aggrandising, "big man", statements should be all the more considered before submission.

Do you really mean that paedophiles should be killed, or that people convicted of paedophilia should be killed? If you've seen the error of your ways, and the latter is true, @TenEightyOne has already asked the next set of questions.
 
BobK
If that's the case then I sincerely apologize to @UKMikey.

But it's an attitude I've seen more times than I care to count. "Oh he's a pedophile. String him up, no ifs, ands or buts."
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Yep. It's one of the ways in which our society still criminalises thoughts.

At the risk of being a conspiracy theorist, I get a little uncomfortable when I see ways in which our society parallels 1984.
 
Imari
At the risk of being a conspiracy theorist, I get a little uncomfortable when I see ways in which our society parallels 1984.
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Why do you think Orwell wrote it?

One of the key elements of dystopian fiction is in the way that society has been "fixed" to correct a mistake that had previously threatened to undermine society. It is presented as being perfect to its inhabitants, but it is immediately apparent to the audience that things are worse off for it (hence "dystopia", a portmanteau of "dysfunctional utopia"). But the mistake that has been "fixed" is based on one of the composer's concerns about the current state of society. In Orwell's case, be saw elements of fascism - or what could become fascism if left unchecked - emerging in post-war England, and so Nineteen Eighty-Four presents a world where an authoritative regime has taken hold in England. Orwell really was concerned that in our eagerness to vanquish fascism and Nazism, we could have unwittingly adopted the same traits and morph into the very thing that we were trying to destroy.

I would hardly call you a conspiracy theorist for seeing parallels between the text and the current state of society. After all, a key part of the story is in the way Winston works in a government agency, writing and rewriting history based on whatever is convenient or consistent with the party's ideology, even when subsequent revisions are contradictory - and what does that sound like?
 
prisonermonkeys
Why do you think Orwell wrote it?

One of the key elements of dystopian fiction is in the way that society has been "fixed" to correct a mistake that had previously threatened to undermine society. It is presented as being perfect to its inhabitants, but it is immediately apparent to the audience that things are worse off for it (hence "dystopia", a portmanteau of "dysfunctional utopia"). But the mistake that has been "fixed" is based on one of the composer's concerns about the current state of society. In Orwell's case, be saw elements of fascism - or what could become fascism if left unchecked - emerging in post-war England, and so Nineteen Eighty-Four presents a world where an authoritative regime has taken hold in England. Orwell really was concerned that in our eagerness to vanquish fascism and Nazism, we could have unwittingly adopted the same traits and morph into the very thing that we were trying to destroy.

I would hardly call you a conspiracy theorist for seeing parallels between the text and the current state of society. After all, a key part of the story is in the way Winston works in a government agency, writing and rewriting history based on whatever is convenient or consistent with the party's ideology, even when subsequent revisions are contradictory - and what does that sound like?
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Hillary Clinton?
 
^I know we're only supposed to use the "s/he wasn't the first to do this" argument to defend sitting US presidents like Trump but to suggest Hillary Clinton was the first to distort the media to her own ends is somewhat revisionary in itself if the experience of Walter Lippmann is anything to go by.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
 
UKMikey
^I know we're only supposed to use the "s/he wasn't the first to do this" argument to defend sitting US presidents like Trump but to suggest Hillary Clinton was the first to distort the media to her own ends is somewhat revisionary in itself if the experience of Walter Lippmann is anything to go by.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lippmann
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Who suggested Hillary Clinton was the first to distort the media to her own ends?
 
Johnnypenso
Who suggested Hillary Clinton was the first to distort the media to her own ends?
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You didn't outright but since, out of all the people guilty of this over the years, she was your go-to example above I thought a clarification was necessary just in case.
 
UKMikey
You didn't outright but since, out of all the people guilty of this over the years, she was your go-to example above I thought a clarification was necessary just in case.
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Correct
 
UKMikey
But if you're going to play that game, I didn't say you did. Only that to suggest such would also be incorrect.
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Yeah, you did. The inference is clear, don't hide behind semantics gymnastics. Leave that to the other, less skilled debaters.
 
Johnnypenso
Yeah, you did. The inference is clear, don't hide behind semantics gymnastics.
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OK, no semantics. To limit the discussion to Hillary is doing the other people who twisted the media a disservice. They all deserve their day in the sun too. Notice that I am not suggesting you're limiting the discussion. However inference can be taken on both sides regardless of how clear it is or not to the other party.
 
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UKMikey
OK, no semantics. To limit the discussion to Hillary is doing the other people who twisted the media a disservice. They all deserve their day in the sun too. Notice that I am not suggesting you're limiting the discussion. However inference can be taken on both sides regardless of how clear it is or not to the other party.
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I really have no idea where you unearthed your tangent. No one is limiting your discussion. A guessing style question was put forth so I guessed. You're seeing the Bible when I submitted a fortune cookie.
 
Grayfox
Capital punishment should be reserved for pedophiles.

One bullet, cheap, quick and easy.

This will save money as the pedophile who is not being supported by tax payers be it food in jail or unemployment benefits
This will save other possible victims from harm.
Click to expand...

TenEightyOne
Surely by that logic you should automatically add serial murderers, rapists and fraudsters to your list? You could probably go on to all the crimes that have re-offence patterns, which is possibly most.

What kind of pedophile? One who likes to look at pictures, one who likes to take pictures or one who likes to rape children - or is it all the same level of offence?
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@Grayfox, still no answer to the above... you're not compelled to answer of course but I'd be interested in your thoughts.
 
Grayfox
Those whom have been convicted.

Jailing them doesnt work as they tend to re offend.
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Gee can't possibly be something wrong with the incarceration system, no that's not it. It must be their inherent nature, so just take them out back and put a bullet in their skull. I hear they come a dime a dozen (bullets that is), so it's cheap. And while you're at it, just have a big cremation oven ready and burn them by the truck load, no one's going to want the ashes of their psychotic child, am I right!?

I mean you get convicted for marijuana possession and might as well forget the felony three strikes, just shoot the pot smoker on the spot, save us the headache. Let's easily forget the fact the some of the criminal charges on the books are archaic and with little meaning compared to those that really matter. I heard the last President was going to commute many non-violent drug offenders, but didn't bother to get rid of Schedule 1 classing on Marijuana. Surely this is the fault of those awful pot smokers, right!?
 

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