Capital Punishment

I wonder if motivations for death penalty opposition come into play with regards to it being a liberal-indicating trait.

I absolutely believe there are those out there for whom the opportunity to keep breathing, albeit removed from society with no possibility of reintegration, is simply unacceptable. "Rehabilitation" be damned.

For me, the problem with execution is really a problem with a flawed criminal justice system. Entirely too many people have been determined to have been wrongfully convicted (even the guilty, because getting the right person for the wrong reason isn't right), however it came to happen, and death is absolute. There is no "Sorry about that, here's your life back."
I wonder if it depends upon whether one considers (as I don't) a percentage of innocent deaths a necessary evil to keep us safe from murderers. Cue more comparisons with road safety.
 
I wonder if motivations for death penalty opposition come into play with regards to it being a liberal-indicating trait.

I absolutely believe there are those out there for whom the opportunity to keep breathing, albeit removed from society with no possibility of reintegration, is simply unacceptable. "Rehabilitation" be damned.

For me, the problem with execution is really a problem with a flawed criminal justice system. Entirely too many people have been determined to have been wrongfully convicted (even the guilty, because getting the right person for the wrong reason isn't right), however it came to happen, and death is absolute. There is no "Sorry about that, here's your life back."

I wonder if it depends upon whether one considers (as I don't) a percentage of innocent deaths a necessary evil to keep us safe from murderers. Cue more comparisons with road safety.

This is a flawed perspective.

You can never restore what is taken from a wrongfully convicted individual - regardless of whether it is death, life in prison, or even just 6 months of prison. There is no way to give someone their life back. The death penalty is not uniquely permanent in this regard. All of it is permanent. If this is what you're hanging your hat on, the hook you're putting it on is thin air.

I'm sure that you and @UKMikey and @zzz_pt would not suddenly argue that the criminal justice system should be abolished simply because it will make a mistake. So @UKMikey's argument evaporates immediately. Is the percentage of innocent incarceration a necessary evil to keep us safe from murderers?

The death penalty is not so suddenly different.

The highest level of evidence should of course be required for the death penalty or life in prison without parole. But the death penalty should essentially never be needed. Because the options should always be presented to accept life in prison as a plea bargain in exchange for forgoing the trial. The amount of absolute win for that trade is unmistakable. It is unforgivable for any prosecuting attorney or judge to refuse that bargain.
 
I'm sure that you and @UKMikey and @zzz_pt would not suddenly argue that the criminal justice system should be abolished simply because it will make a mistake.
Yeah, no...I think addressing flaws in the system is favorable to abolishing the system. I did specify a flawed criminal justice system in my original post.
 
This is a flawed perspective.

You can never restore what is taken from a wrongfully convicted individual - regardless of whether it is death, life in prison, or even just 6 months of prison. There is no way to give someone their life back. The death penalty is not uniquely permanent in this regard. All of it is permanent. If this is what you're hanging your hat on, the hook you're putting it on is thin air.

I'm sure that you and @UKMikey and @zzz_pt would not suddenly argue that the criminal justice system should be abolished simply because it will make a mistake. So @UKMikey's argument evaporates immediately. Is the percentage of innocent incarceration a necessary evil to keep us safe from murderers?

The death penalty is not so suddenly different.

The highest level of evidence should of course be required for the death penalty or life in prison without parole. But the death penalty should essentially never be needed. Because the options should always be presented to accept life in prison as a plea bargain in exchange for forgoing the trial. The amount of absolute win for that trade is unmistakable. It is unforgivable for any prosecuting attorney or judge to refuse that bargain.

The difference between an innocent being wrongfully convicted to life/years/months in prison and being wrongfully convicted to death, is that despite both being grave mistakes, in the former, there's time to fix the mistake. Of course the person will never be the same, but they'll be free and vindicated. If they're death after the error is found, there's nothing to be done.

Innocent people are pulled into trials all the time. Most of the time they're let go because the system works reasonably well. But when it fails it fails hard. And it's better to fail in way that allows for correction, however late that might be, than not to allow any correction at all.

It seems to me that systems that have the death penalty in place abuse it too easily.
 
The difference between an innocent being wrongfully convicted to life/years/months in prison and being wrongfully convicted to death, is that despite both being grave mistakes, in the former, there's time to fix the mistake.

Nope. All you can do is stop the bleeding. You'd need a time machine to fix it.

And it's better to fail in way that allows for correction, however late that might be, than not to allow any correction at all.

Yes, you have an opportunity to set someone free who did not deserve to be imprisoned, and you do not if the person is dead. But people are falsely imprisoned for life and never set free. Is this so radically different? Hat -> thin air.

It seems to me that systems that have the death penalty in place abuse it too easily.

IMHO it should be mandatory to offer a life in prison plea bargain.
 
Yes, you have an opportunity to set someone free who did not deserve to be imprisoned, and you do not if the person is dead. But people are falsely imprisoned for life and never set free. Is this so radically different? Hat -> thin air.
I really don't understand this. Are you arguing that because some people are falsely imprisoned for life that this is a reason for the death penalty? That those people would be better off dead? To me the death penalty and life imprisonment seem different because there is a chance of reprieve rather than despite it.
 
I really don't understand this. Are you arguing that because some people are falsely imprisoned for life that this is a reason for the death penalty? That those people would be better off dead?

Nope. I'm arguing that it is not a distinction with the death penalty. Improper convictions create irreparable damage.

To me the death penalty and life imprisonment seem different because there is a chance of reprieve rather than despite it.

Yes with life in prison you can attempt to mitigate the harm if you determine that a mistake was made. With the death penalty you cannot. In either case, the damage done is permanent and irreparable. In either case, you could destroy the entire life of a person who is wrongly convicted. With life in prison, if you find a mistake, you have a chance to do less harm than the full amount prescribed, but you do not have the opportunity to right the wrong. You can only do less wrong.

The death penalty (and even life in prison without parole) should only be available in the most egregious of cases. That's not always the case today, but that's how it ought to be, and i think how it is intended.

The death penalty though needs to be only extremely rarely used. Almost never, to be effective. Without the death penalty, there is no reason for someone who may be convicted to life without parole to do anything but argue indefinitely in court, and appeal at every step. Each time they have a chance to get away with a crime. With the presence of the death penalty, the mere presence, they have a reason not to. And that makes all the difference. It enables us to be wildly more effective in terms of actually convicting someone guilty of a crime, but also in terms of the cost of convicting them. It doesn't even really need to be used to accomplish this, it just needs to be available.

Occasionally, such as in the James Holmes case here in CO, the prosecutor refuses to go for less than the death penalty, even though a life without parole plea bargain would have been accepted. This should not be allowed. Not only does it put James back in that position I was talking about (endless appeals, nothing to lose), but it risks setting him free, and at huge taxpayer cost.
 
Nope. All you can do is stop the bleeding. You'd need a time machine to fix it.

Yes, you have an opportunity to set someone free who did not deserve to be imprisoned, and you do not if the person is dead. But people are falsely imprisoned for life and never set free. Is this so radically different? Hat -> thin air.

IMHO it should be mandatory to offer a life in prison plea bargain.

The mistake being taking the freedom away from someone innocent. That's "fixable" if the person is released. I'm not saying it "fixes" the person, that's why I added "of course the person will never be the same, but they'll be free and vindicated."

This seems to be a clear case where the best is (or is being made) enemy of the good. You seem to be saying that because a wrongfully convicted person can never be given the freedom they lost unjustly, it's meaningless if they die or if they're released later on, because we can't go back in time and make the correct decision. The state saves some money by killind the person, sure. But that's a very utilitarian view of the issue, isn't it?

Imagine someone is wrongly convicted to death, only to be revealed a day later they were innocent (hyperbole). There's no option to release them. The best solution would be to make the right decision in the beginning and let them free. That not being possible, there's a good solution: set them free after the error is detected and the person found innocent.
 
The mistake being taking the freedom away from someone innocent. That's "fixable" if the person is released. I'm not saying it "fixes" the person, that's why I added "of course the person will never be the same, but they'll be free and vindicated."

This seems to be a clear case where the best is (or is being made) enemy of the good. You seem to be saying that because a wrongfully convicted person can never be given the freedom they lost unjustly, it's meaningless if they die or if they're released later on, because we can't go back in time and make the correct decision.

Nope. I did not say that. I described rather the opposite.

The state saves some money by killind the person, sure. But that's a very utilitarian view of the issue, isn't it?

...definitely didn't say that one.

Imagine someone is wrongly convicted to death, only to be revealed a day later they were innocent (hyperbole). There's no option to release them. The best solution would be to make the right decision in the beginning and let them free. That not being possible, there's a good solution: set them free after the error is detected and the person found innocent.

None of that refutes anything I've said.
 
I'd prefer that people didn't kill people. For me, the rest of the debate around whether there should be capital punishment is less significant.
 
^Likewise, I'm not going to drop my opposition to the death penalty because there exists in theory a perfect system in which it'll almost never have to be used in anger.
 
I'd prefer that people didn't kill people.

Me too. But I'm not opposed to it in certain cases. Especially cases where there is a large amount of evidence, the crime was heinous, and the accused refuses an offer of life in prison.

^Likewise, I'm not going to drop my opposition to the death penalty because there exists in theory a perfect system in which it'll almost never have to be used in anger.

By "in theory a prefect system" you mean, very nearly what we have in the US, especially in certain states which use the death penalty infrequently right? I mean... so for example, here in CO, we have executed 1 person since 1977 (I had to read that like 3 times because even I didn't believe it).

And yet, that death penalty, which we almost never use, was just used to put Chris Watts away for life without giving him a chance of getting off scott free due to a botched prosecution, saving us millions. If only we would have taken James Holmes up on the option we'd have yet another example of a practically perfect implementation of the death penalty.

So basically by "in theory a perfect system in which it'll almost never have to be used" you mean what Colorado is doing (and could have done better with Holmes).


Edit:

Just for the record, I would edit some of the crimes which are punishable by death in CO. It's not a prefect system, but it fits the description of what was referred to as a perfect system.
 
By "in theory a prefect system" you mean, very nearly what we have in the US, especially in certain states which use the death penalty infrequently right? I mean... so for example, here in CO, we have executed 1 person since 1977 (I had to read that like 3 times because even I didn't believe it).
1499 people have been executed in the US since 1976 (presumably in states with a less perfect implementation of capital punishment). If some or even the majority of states are do it right, isn't it worth at least reviewing the situation in the other states? Unless they have more murderers.

[EDIT] I wonder how the murder reoffence rate in states which have abolished capital punishment compares to those states which execute twenty people on average every year.
 
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1499 people have been executed in the US since 1976 (presumably in states with a less perfect implementation of capital punishment). If some or even the majority of states are do it right, isn't it worth at least reviewing the situation in the other states? Unless they have more murderers.

I think it could use updating across the board. Lots of states do it in ways I would like them not to. Here in CO would like to have a rule for prosecutors that prevents what happened with James Holmes. They should always have the option to plea bargain to life in prison, that should always be accepted (by the state). I can't think of a time when it should not be.
 
"Capital Punishment".....sounds so friendly.

"Premeditated murder of citizens carried out under orders of the State" is more accurate.
 
Personally, I support the death penalty for people who, in my eyes, flat out deserve death. They're people whose crime was so heinous that they don't deserve another chance. Examples would be Breivik in Norway, someone who raped another through force (including threats of force) or through date rape drugs, or someone who kill for sport/entertainment. In the last case, for instance, there was a newlywed couple in the US a couple of years back who kidnapped someone off of the street and strangulated them in their home with a plastic bag. People like this are sick to the very core, and spending tax money on a life sentence for them is, to me, absurd.

I don't believe the death penalty deters the kind of behavior that would warrant such a sentence. Really, you'll never be able to stop people from doing what they want to do. For me, it's about what I consider appropriate justice.

"Capital Punishment".....sounds so friendly.

"Premeditated murder of citizens carried out under orders of the State" is more accurate.

If you wanna play it like that we might just as well call it fair punishment of rapists, murderers and terrorists.

Both choices would be absurd. The former alludes that random people are selected for death for no good reason, and the latter indicates that no one is ever found guilty of a crime that they did not commit. Neither is an accurate and/or adequate description of the death penalty.
 
I'm not a big fan of rapists, but is death really an appropriate punishment for the deed?
 
"Premeditated murder of citizens carried out under orders of the State" is more accurate.

"Murder" would imply that the person has a right to life.

Let's pretend someone was trying to kill your friend. Most people agree that you're entitled to use lethal force to protect others (ie: it is not murder to kill the attacker). I'm assuming then that this is a common-ground starting point (hopefully I'm not wrong). To be against the death penalty (I guess, from a principled perspective rather than a pragmatic one) is to say that you're suddenly unable to use lethal force against that person after they've successfully killed your friend.
 
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Allow me to put my thoughts on the table
I’m a firm believer in “Make the punishment fit the crime”
For example, Terrorism. This is a situation where Capital Punishment would be useful
However, sentencing someone to death for being gay? Total BS
Sentencing someone to death for simply trying to get stories for a newspaper article? Stupid decision
Sentencing someone to death for fraud? For Money Laundering? Drug smuggling? (This is referencing China, which carries out more executions than any other country in the world)
People can and will abuse Capital Punishment. If we made the punishment fit the crime, it would save people a lot of unnecessary blood, tears and anguish
 
"Murder" would imply that the person has a right to life.

Let's pretend someone was trying to kill your friend. Most people agree that you're entitled to use lethal force to protect others (ie: it is not murder to kill the attacker). I'm assuming then that this is a common-ground starting point (hopefully I'm not wrong). To be against the death penalty (I guess, from a principled perspective rather than a pragmatic one) is to say that you're suddenly unable to use lethal force against that person after they've successfully killed your friend.

That's two different scenarios. One is for protection and the other is not(lethal force after the person is captured).
 
I'm not a big fan of rapists, but is death really an appropriate punishment for the deed?

personally, I think so. I mean, you'd have to be a seriously twisted individual in order to harm another human being like that. It's such a personal thing that I imagine stays with you forever, making it hard for you to trust others and so on. One might draw a distinction between serial rapists and one time offenders, although I think I recall that most rapists are repeat offenders. Alcohol is often cited as a mitigating factor, which from my point of view is just shifting blame and not taking responsibility.

I guess the real dilemma of the death penalty, at least so far as I see it, isn't so much wether one supports it, as that just presents it as two sets of extremes, but more which crimes are severe enough for the punishment. Morality and justice are tricky concepts :)
 
That's two different scenarios. One is for protection and the other is not(lethal force after the person is captured).

So you think that you can shoot a person who is attacking your friend right up until the friend dies, and then you cannot (I didn't say anything about capture in my scenario).

A couple of things I want you to think about. 1) Why can you protect yourself or someone else with lethal force from an attacker? What gives you that right? How is that different from killing a random person on the street? 2) Why does that person lose their right to life during an attack and regain it after the attack is successful?
 
So you think that you can shoot a person who is attacking your friend right up until the friend dies, and then you cannot (I didn't say anything about capture in my scenario).

A couple of things I want you to think about. 1) Why can you protect yourself or someone else with lethal force from an attacker? What gives you that right? How is that different from killing a random person on the street? 2) Why does that person lose their right to life during an attack and regain it after the attack is successful?

I would say you can't shoot the attacker if they are no longer a threat to anyone, which could be difficult to determine. That's why I mentioned capture, because at that point they are no longer a threat and I assumed they are serving a life sentence versus being sentenced to the death penalty.

You can use lethal force on someone if they are trying to take someone's life. That's what makes it different than killing a random person on the street(although who knows where they're heading). In theory after the attack is over, no more threat exists.

The major thought that crosses my mind is that given the exact same circumstances, that murderer could have been anyone. The other one is that depending on the person a life sentence could be worse, and the other way around.
 
I would say you can't shoot the attacker if they are no longer a threat to anyone, which could be difficult to determine.

You can use lethal force on someone if they are trying to take someone's life. That's what makes it different than killing a random person on the street(although who knows where they're heading). In theory after the attack is over, no more threat exists.

So you can't shoot the attacker when the threat is over, but when the threat is over is difficult to determine. Why is that? What makes that a difficult assessment? Let's say the put their knife down and say "don't shoot, I'm not going to harm anyone else". Good enough?

That's why I mentioned capture, because at that point they are no longer a threat

What if you couldn't capture them? What if it's just you and your friend and the murderer in the woods, and you don't have a prison or police or handcuffs? What if you capture them, but you imprison them in a prison that occasionally people escape from? What if it's pretty common that people escape? How does that change your calculation?

How can you really determine that the threat is over?
 
How can you really determine that the threat is over?
Dare I say, xxxx xx'x xxxx?
I got cake for anyone who figures it out without buying a vowel.
A cookie if you need help.
 
So you can't shoot the attacker when the threat is over, but when the threat is over is difficult to determine. Why is that? What makes that a difficult assessment? Let's say the put their knife down and say "don't shoot, I'm not going to harm anyone else". Good enough?

It's difficult to determine, because we are not mind readers. We don't know what caused the attack and the likelihood of it happening again. It could be good enough if they stay in the same place, don't appear like a thread and wait for the police to arrive.

What if you couldn't capture them? What if it's just you and your friend and the murderer in the woods, and you don't have a prison or police or handcuffs

Seems that a reasonable threat would still exist.

What if you capture them, but you imprison them in a prison that occasionally people escape from? What if it's pretty common that people escape? How does that change your calculation?

I would have to look at the probability of them escaping. What is a reasonable probability? I don't know.

How can you really determine that the threat is over?

You can't, not in absolute certainty. But that applies to every person.

Dare I say, xxxx xx'x xxxx?
I got cake for anyone who figures it out without buying a vowel.
A cookie if you need help.

when it's dead
 
"Murder" would imply that the person has a right to life.

Let's pretend someone was trying to kill your friend. Most people agree that you're entitled to use lethal force to protect others (ie: it is not murder to kill the attacker). I'm assuming then that this is a common-ground starting point (hopefully I'm not wrong). To be against the death penalty is to say that you're suddenly unable to use lethal force against that person after they've successfully killed your friend.

Not a good analogy imo. In that situation (unless you don't care if your friend dies...) you don't have other option than to try and stop the person attempting to take your friend's life. You don't even have to kill him either - you could use a taser or paralize him in some other way. If you had the option to magically lock him behind bars, why wouldn't you do that instead? Also, if your friend is dead and you kill the murderer afterwards when he turns his back to get out of the scene, you're not defending anyone. Unless he comes to you and threatness you too, you're taking justice into your own hands.

I'm not saying I wouldn't do it in the heat of the moment if I had a gun in my hand (I have no idea), but thinking about the situation rationally in abstract, it makes no sense to me. It would be a revenge situation, because my friend would be dead already. Gangs work more or less like that. One of the members is killed, then his friends kill the killer, than the killer's friends kill his killer, ad eternum. We got rid of the "eye for an eye" system long ago because it was worse.

Another reason not to kill the killer is that I wouldn't have all the information about what happened and wouldn't be in a proper rational place to judge the situation in an unbiased and fair way. Emotions would be taking over, or at least be a great influence on my decisions of killing or not killing the attacker. What if my friend, whithout me knowing, had raped the attacker's daughter? Or if my friend had ran over the attacker's wife and kept driving? Or what if my friend had beaten the attacker for years while in college? I mean, I wouldn't be able to make a fair and just decision not knowing about everything that led to that situation so I wouldn't shoot the attacker unless he was also threatning to kill me.

Courts and our judicial system don't (or isn't suppose to) act like a normal individual acts in the heat of the moment. We probably don't posess all the information needed to make the call to kill someone unless we're under death threat.

I have an honest question in my mind for you. From what I understand of your posts on other threads, you have quite a few objections to the idea of the governemnt taking responsability for its citizens' healthcare or education for instance (which I comprehend), but at the same time you approve the idea that the state should have the ultimate power to decide who to kill and who to let live. Are the people making those decisions and influncing the legislation, implementation and application of the death penalty more competent, less corrupt, less biased (less racist even), etc, than the people who could be in charge of public healthcare and education for instance? I don't see how to reconcile both (being reticent about state funded healthcare but pro-state funded death).

The issue (aside free will / determinism which is at the basis of this whole argument) is the state taking in its own hands who should be killed and who shouldn't. It's one of the reasons why I don't think the state should prohibit euthanasia or abortion, when the parties involved consent.

If the person being convicted has the option to decide, without coersion, between life in prison or death penalty, I see it as being more reasonable.

Dare I say, xxxx xx'x xxxx?
I got cake for anyone who figures it out without buying a vowel.
A cookie if you need help.

When he's dead.
 
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It's difficult to determine, because we are not mind readers. We don't know what caused the attack and the likelihood of it happening again. It could be good enough if they stay in the same place, don't appear like a thread and wait for the police to arrive.

You do know something in this case though, you know he's killed your friend. That much of his mind you can read.

Seems that a reasonable threat would still exist.
...
I would have to look at the probability of them escaping. What is a reasonable probability? I don't know.
...
You can't, not in absolute certainty. But that applies to every person.
...
when it's dead

I think you've seen what I wanted to show you. The criminal justice system offers you the luxury of wishing away the death penalty. Without that infrastructure, you'd be hard pressed to avoid capital punishment.

Not a good analogy imo. In that situation (unless you don't care if your friend dies...) you don't have other option than to try and stop the person attempting to take your friend's life. You don't even have to kill him either - you could use a taser or paralize him in some other way. If you had the option to magically lock him behind bars, why wouldn't you do that instead? Also, if your friend is dead and you kill the murderer afterwards when he turns his back to get out of the scene, you're not defending anyone. Unless he comes to you and threatness you too, you're taking justice into your own hands.

You're taking justice into your own hands regardless. That doesn't change after the murder. I'll explain below.

It would be a revenge situation, because my friend would be dead already.

Could still be defense.

Another reason not to kill the killer is that I wouldn't have all the information about what happened and wouldn't be in a proper rational place to judge the situation in an unbiased and fair way. Emotions would be taking over, or at least be a great influence on my decisions of killing or not killing the attacker. What if my friend, whithout me knowing, had raped the attacker's daughter? Or if my friend had ran over the attacker's wife and kept driving? Or what if my friend had beaten the attacker for years while in college? I mean, I wouldn't be able to make a fair and just decision not knowing about everything that led to that situation so I wouldn't shoot the attacker unless he was also threatning to kill me.

If some of those cases were true, you're not justified in using lethal force to protect your friend either. Your friend is now the one without rights, not the attacker. You may be right to say that it's not a good analogy. It is difficult to have enough information to act in that instance. What is needed to draw an analogy is evidence, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that your friend is innocent, and that the attacker is a murderer when he kills your friend. Short of that, it's not a good comparison to the criminal justice system performing an execution.

So bear with me and pretend that you have that information, and then see where that takes you in the hypothetical. You do, after all, have this information for yourself. So you know when you're attacked whether you are innocent. You know whether this person is attempting to commit murder, and you know that they are without their right to life even if they fail.

I have an honest question in my mind for you. From what I understand of your posts on other threads, you have quite a few objections to the idea of the governemnt taking responsability for its citizens' healthcare or education for instance (which I comprehend), but at the same time you approve the idea that the state should have the ultimate power to decide who to kill and who to let live.

It's literally what government is for. It's not a matter of whether I trust them to get it right every time, I don't. But that is literally the function of government, to protect human rights. You don't make this statement any less threatening or difficult for me if you rephrase it to "ultimate power to decide who to incarcerate for ever and who to let walk free". It doesn't change the question at all. So this is not a capital punishment issue, this is a question about whether government can be trusted to protect human rights, and the answer is no, and that's why government needs a lot of checks and balances in place to prevent it from getting out of control.

It's one of the reasons why I don't think the state should prohibit euthanasia or abortion, when the parties involved consent.

Euthanasia is obviously not a protection of human rights, so yes the state should not get involved in that. For abortion, it very much comes down to how one obtains rights, and when. The same issue is at play for murderers. If the murderer has rights, he cannot be executed. If the fetus has rights, neither can it.

If the person being convicted has the option to decide, without coersion, between life in prison or death penalty, I see it as being more reasonable.

This is what I advocate. In my personal view, death is an appropriate sentence for many crimes (including murder). But pragmatically it should be reserved beyond those, because we know the state will make mistakes, and the opportunity for abuse exists. It's never necessary for the state to execute someone, but in my view it is permissible. I don't think it's a good idea in general. But I don't go so far as to call for the eradication of the death penalty. I see it as an important part of the efficient operation of the criminal justice system, and something that should really never be used unless the accused chooses to waive the alternative (life in prison).

I also think that we should do it via firing squad.
 
I mean, you'd have to be a seriously twisted individual in order to harm another human being like that.
Sure you would. But is an actual death sentence (which is to say not the mere threat in an effort to draw out a plea and avoid a lengthy trial) a justifiable response? Mind you I'm not advocating for the crime to go unpunished.

It's such a personal thing that I imagine stays with you forever, making it hard for you to trust others and so on.
So does theft. I'm 47 and I still recall the first time I was aware someone stole from me. It was a watch that I'd left in my backpack while I was swimming in PE when I was 12. Of course I don't present this to suggest that rape isn't serious, rather that execution is serious.

I guess the real dilemma of the death penalty, at least so far as I see it, isn't so much wether one supports it, as that just presents it as two sets of extremes, but more which crimes are severe enough for the punishment. Morality and justice are tricky concepts :)
Yes.
 
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