The Capital Punishment Debate

[jollyjacktar]

Then we shall have to agree to disagree.

 

[Jarnhamar]

There is nothing inherently desirable or justifiable to society that execution or causing brain damage can accomplish that a true life sentence without parole and in isolation cannot. I don't give much of a shit for those who are guilty- my concenr is solely with the fact that the state is most certainly going to get it wrong from time to time, and such consequences as are imposed must be at least to an extend revocable when we discover that the justice system failed to exceed the competence of the weakest link in the chain at some point in a case.

Is the death of one man by error of the state worth the lives of 10, 100 or 1000 innocent victims whom said reoccurring offender may kill once they are let out of jail?
Life in prison isn't a good option as far as I'm concerned- too expensive.  How many lives could be saved if you took the cost of 12 "inmates for life" and turned that over into food and medicine?

We may take someones life by accident, but how many lives did we (Canada) take by accident overseas. Hundreds? I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 1000. 
That was in the name of the war which we went to in order to protect Canada from attack.

As far as I'm concerned putting a serial murderer to death is protecting Canada from attack just as well.

 

[brihard]

Then we shall have to agree to disagree.

Doesn't mean I have to shut up about it. It stuns me that so many people who are so readily critical of the state and its propensity to screw everything else up are willing to extend to it the blind trust to kill someone when it does not uniquely serve a need, or in this instance to cut part of someone's brain out.

When we achieve a government and justice system that can flawlessly establish truth I'll happily see us bring in the death penalty for some crimes. But it isn't, and probably won't be, and I'll not have the state possibly murder an innocent person because we *don't like* the thought of merely locking them away in solitary for the rest of their natural life.

[Quote author=Grimaldus]Is the death of one man by error of the state worth the lives of 10, 100 or 1000 innocent victims whom said reoccurring offender may kill once they are let out of jail?
Life in prison isn't a good option as far as I'm concerned- too expensive.  How many lives could be saved if you took the cost of 12 "inmates for life" and turned that over into food and medicine?

We may take someones life by accident, but how many lives did we (Canada) take by accident overseas. Hundreds? I wouldn't be surprised if it was over 1000. 
That was in the name of the war which we went to in order to protect Canada from attack.

As far as I'm concerned putting a serial murderer to death is protecting Canada from attack just as well.[/quote]

The necessary corollary of my position is we *must* have a method to completely isolate a criminal from society from the point of arrest until they're dead. That serves the same ends, but can be reversed when on the rare occasion we discover we screwed up.

There cannot be an analogy between accidental deaths in war and execution of an innocent. Every wartime accidental death either comes from malfeasance (which should be investigated and, if appropriate, treated as a crime) or from error made in good faith where that individual genuinely felt themselves or others at risk and had to act. You know this as well as I do; I know how damned close I came a couple of times to making that 'good faith' error. In war the normal peace has already broken down, and stability has to be restored before we have the luxury of taking many months or years to determine truth. A criminal justice system *does* have the luxury of as much time is needed, and the means do exist to prevent anyone from possibly victimizing others in that time.

As for life imprisonment costing more than execution- absolute bunk. A death sentence *must* carry with it every avenue of appeal, and even there errors are *still* made. It costs far more to run through all the legal avenues and then kill a man (plus to operate a special, small, segregated death row to hold these few) than to keep someone in jail for life. Only if we seek efficiency of scale and start executing wholesale like China can the death penalty be made cheaper, and that's obviously not an acceptable way to go about it.

 

[ballz]

Life in prison isn't a good option as far as I'm concerned- too expensive.  How many lives could be saved if you took the cost of 12 "inmates for life" and turned that over into food and medicine?

I'm on the pro-capital punishment side but expenses aren't a great argument. It's pretty damn expensive to execute someone, and it's not near as expensive "per prisoner" as the books say (just like it's not near as expensive to fly a plane per hour as the books say).

Nope, fails the revocability test.

That's fine if that's where your comfort level falls. Personally, I am not convinced by about this revocability standard. As long as we've made it statistically impossible for the state to screw it up (by having the requirements I outlined before), your concern that the state will do something irrevocable based on a false-conviction is IMO not relevant.

In what I've proposed, the only way they could falsely put someone to death is if they had 2 or 3 false-convictions on the same damn person, do you really think it's remotely possible that the state could manage that?

On another not about vengeance and justice... I don't think there's anything wrong or unjust with a bit of vengeance on someone that rapes and murders a pair of children. I would sleep soundly at night, but maybe I am just a bitter person.

 

[ballz]

Oh yes, and proportionality, and important factor of justice, just came to my mind.

As the crime gets worse, the punishment is supposed to get worse. Except, a second-degree murder gets one life in prison. There are crimes far far far worse than a second-degree murder. There has to be a punishment that is far worse.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Just to throw a slightly different perspective into the mix....

Is the death of one man by error of the state worth the lives of 10, 100 or 1000 innocent victims whom said reoccurring offender may kill once they are let out of jail?

I'm a supporter of capital punishment.  That said, one has to be careful when making "better one innocent one die than one guilty one get loose" argument.

How would one feel if they were the innocent mistake on death row?  Willing to sit there thinking, "hey, better me getting the needle to make sure nobody who's killed ever gets back into the street"?  And if one really thinks this, how would their family feel?

 

[Jarnhamar]

I'm not sold on the thought that it costs more to put someone to death than keep them in jail the rest of their lives.
Perhaps were that actually the case we would look at shortening the lengthily process of putting someone to death.

Because really if Mr Anderson has served 2 sentences for violent rapes and he is let out and caught standing in a pool of blood, knife in hand and a dead woman at his feet and his defense is that he was jogging and seen the body so he stopped to help-every piece of evidence is pointing to the fact that it was him except theres no witnesses I'm okay with the 1% fudge factor.

Maybe it does cost more but to me that means we need to chance the process and stop letting these guys and girls appeal shit for 12 years. The system needs to change.

No one likes to place a monetary value on someones life.


Milnews agreed that's always a tricky slope. I'm obviously not saying this in a prison cell with a noose around my neck.

I'm not sure why people are so afraid to support inhumane treatment for lack of a better phrase of these hardcore life destroying criminals.  Maybe being a parent has changed my perspective but I'd really be happy to see a lot of these monsters hurt in very bad ways.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Doesn't mean I have to shut up about it.

I did not ask you to.  I just won't agree with you in your beliefs on this subject.

It stuns me

You're free to be as stunned as you like as well.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I'm not sure why people are so afraid to support inhumane treatment for lack of a better phrase of these hardcore life destroying criminals.  Maybe being a parent has changed my perspective but I'd really be happy to see a lot of these monsters hurt in very bad ways.

You're not the only parent I've heard sound off as strongly as you do (especially when talking about sex offenders with young victims), so you're in good company.

These guys were inhuman to someone else, so should all Canadians (the state) stoop to their level?  I'm OK with spartan, minimalist and out of the way, but I'm guessing most people won't be for dungeons, even for these very, very, very bad folks.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Dungeons with all the accessories will be just fine for the likes of Picton, Bernardo et al.  I'll even volunteer to be part of the staff...  >

 

[GK .Dundas]

Dungeons with all the accessories will be just fine for the likes of Picton, Bernardo et al.  I'll even volunteer to be part of the staff...  >

Just leave all the cute leather outfits at home .It's not considered professional if you've having too much fun! :nod:

 

[brihard]

Definitely the concept of what is 'humane' treatment has been stretched too far in some instances. While I will never, ever countenance torture or mistreatment, prison *should* be a hard place. It should be a place you never want to go. It should be as safe as we can make it, but other than that damned near intolerable. 'Spartan and minimalist' are both good terms for what I'm thinking on this.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Just leave all the cute leather outfits at home .It's not considered professional if you've having too much fun! :nod:

Find a job you love any you'll never work another day in your life.  ;D

 

[ballz]

These guys were inhuman to someone else, so should all Canadians (the state) stoop to their level?  I'm OK with spartan, minimalist and out of the way, but I'm guessing most people won't be for dungeons, even for these very, very, very bad folks.

I don't think wrapping a rope around their neck and letting them drop 15 feet is anywhere near their level, their victims would probably wish to trade places. I assume this is what you meant by spartan and minimalist? Quick, clean, and done?

 

[vonGarvin]

I've been hovering over this issue for quite some time.

For the initial post, the suggestion to give convicted murderers the rope to decide their own fate is an abhorrent way to treat those for whom we are responsible, irrespective of the crimes they have committed.  If we as a society want them dead, then we as a society must make that decision, consciously.  We cannot pretend to absolve ourselves of the responsibility by simply making the means available. 

For the suggestion that DNA be the deciding factor, it's only one piece of evidence, and it only proves that a person's DNA is somewhere.  It does not mean that the person was there.  DNA can travel over space and time to end up somewhere by almost any means. 

If we kill someone out of vengeance as a society, then we are killing someone for the wrong reason.  If we are killing them as punishment "pour encourager les autres", well, maybe.  But if we do decide to do so, then we ought not to pretend that we are acting in a humane manner with "lethal injections".  No.  We as a society must be uncomfortable with each and every killing we commit.  Hang the convicted person by the neck until dead.  And we as a society must be forced to watch, lest we think of something as simply "going away".  We cannot allow a convicted person to simply "pass away in the night" in some far off cell.  We must witness it, so that we never forget how painful of a decision it is to kill another human being.

 

[brihard]

I've been hovering over this issue for quite some time.

For the initial post, the suggestion to give convicted murderers the rope to decide their own fate is an abhorrent way to treat those for whom we are responsible, irrespective of the crimes they have committed.  If we as a society want them dead, then we as a society must make that decision, consciously.  We cannot pretend to absolve ourselves of the responsibility by simply making the means available. 

For the suggestion that DNA be the deciding factor, it's only one piece of evidence, and it only proves that a person's DNA is somewhere.  It does not mean that the person was there.  DNA can travel over space and time to end up somewhere by almost any means. 

If we kill someone out of vengeance as a society, then we are killing someone for the wrong reason.  If we are killing them as punishment "pour encourager les autres", well, maybe.  But if we do decide to do so, then we ought not to pretend that we are acting in a humane manner with "lethal injections".  No.  We as a society must be uncomfortable with each and every killing we commit.  Hang the convicted person by the neck until dead.  And we as a society must be forced to watch, lest we think of something as simply "going away".  We cannot allow a convicted person to simply "pass away in the night" in some far off cell.  We must witness it, so that we never forget how painful of a decision it is to kill another human being.

Very, very well put.

 

[Jarnhamar]

  We cannot allow a convicted person to simply "pass away in the night" in some far off cell.  We must witness it, so that we never forget how painful of a decision it is to kill another human being.

Awesome.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I don't think wrapping a rope around their neck and letting them drop 15 feet is anywhere near their level, their victims would probably wish to trade places. I assume this is what you meant by spartan and minimalist? Quick, clean, and done?

Should have been clearer - I was thinking in terms of confinement conditions, not execution.

 

[exabedtech]

I've been hovering over this issue for quite some time.

For the initial post, the suggestion to give convicted murderers the rope to decide their own fate is an abhorrent way to treat those for whom we are responsible, irrespective of the crimes they have committed.  If we as a society want them dead, then we as a society must make that decision, consciously.  We cannot pretend to absolve ourselves of the responsibility by simply making the means available. 

For the suggestion that DNA be the deciding factor, it's only one piece of evidence, and it only proves that a person's DNA is somewhere.  It does not mean that the person was there.  DNA can travel over space and time to end up somewhere by almost any means. 

If we kill someone out of vengeance as a society, then we are killing someone for the wrong reason.  If we are killing them as punishment "pour encourager les autres", well, maybe.  But if we do decide to do so, then we ought not to pretend that we are acting in a humane manner with "lethal injections".  No.  We as a society must be uncomfortable with each and every killing we commit.  Hang the convicted person by the neck until dead.  And we as a society must be forced to watch, lest we think of something as simply "going away".  We cannot allow a convicted person to simply "pass away in the night" in some far off cell.  We must witness it, so that we never forget how painful of a decision it is to kill another human being.

Couldn't agree more.  If execution is what society wants, we should be witness to it.  There is nothing humane about killing someone who doesn't want to die, so drop the pretense and hang them in the town square.  Free admission, and no restrictions for the press.  Want to show how the head ripped off the body on the front page?  Go for it!  If we as a people choose this manner of punishment, we should be confronted with its truth. 
If its deterrence we are after, maybe leave them to hang for a month or two as a reminder to those who may have been of like mind as the poor guilty bastard.  Few issues in this world are black and white, but certainly death is one of them.

 

[jollyjacktar]

We must witness it, so that we never forget how painful of a decision it is to kill another human being.

I think it would be quite painless to sentence the truly dangerous to death as was earlier suggested, before it got derailed to include the run of the mill murderer by some here.  Except for the die hard bleeding faint of heart I don't think you'd find too much sympathy among the Canadian populous for the likes Bernardo, Pickton, Olson et al getting their necks adjusted.  And some, like me would be happy for them to be fed into a wood chipper, feet first.  And as for cost, the sooner after the sentence the cheaper the cost to the state.  The truly dangerous offenders out there will not be safely readmitted into society, nor I suggest will they find any worthwhile remorse of their crimes during a lengthy incarceration.  So, what's the point/benefit of incarceration for these creatures?