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Death penalty

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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
I know this isnt well written, but i wrote it in 20 minutes this morning since it was due. I just want to debate capital punishment, this is a good way to start it, whats your opinion?

Louis Miraglia 3/12/07
Government

The death penalty is a method of punishment that has been used forever, but recently has been debated in the United States. Almost everybody has an opinion on the death penalty, which is often changed throughout their lifetime. In my opinion, prior to the viewing the movie Execution at Midnight, I was against the death penalty. The movie helped me gather my thoughts and my opinion still stands, I am against the death penalty. With the way our legal system runs, any innocent man can be proven guilty, so how do you choose which criminals to execute? Another opinion that I have is that sometimes people become angry and make mistakes, these types of people can’t justify their own actions.
Throughout the movie there were criminals that admitted to their actions, however, I don’t think execution is the sentence they deserve. For example, one of the murderers on death row was responsible for the death of the guy who was responsible for the death of his brother. Of course I know murder is wrong, however there is no way he was thinking straight. He recently suffered the death of his brother, he was just looking for revenge and now a mother must suffer with the death of both her sons. Murder is wrong and I think consecutive life sentences would be a better form of punishment in this case. The government shouldn’t be able to decide who should live, and who shouldn’t.
It is proven that there are criminals everywhere, not just on death row, which were wrongly accused of a crime. So the question arises, how does the government choose who and who not to kill? There was a very famous murder that went trial many times; resulting in that Larry Griffin was innocent of murder. However before the verdict was in, he was already executed for his crimes. The government made a mistake, an innocent man was executed, this mistake just can’t happen again. The government shouldn’t be able to choose who and who not to kill, especially when there is room for error. With the hundreds of people who have already been executed, or on death row, who knows if they really deserve to die?
The government should be in no place to decide who should live, and who should be executed. If somebody gets angry and can not justify their actions, then there are other ways to handle it besides executing them. The legal system also makes mistakes and wrongly accuses a people of a crime, if this goes bad an innocent person can be sentenced to death. It is not worth it to kill one innocent person, to make sure the government executes hundreds of guilty criminals.
Mar 13 2007 8:46PM
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Typical
Posts: 2269 - Karma: 83
try to start with... The death penalty has a long history...

good luck with the rest.
Mar 13 2007 8:48PM
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EnemySki
Posts: 471 - Karma: 10
I am for the death penalty. I believe that if a crime is so terrible that the person who commits it does not deserver to live.
Mar 13 2007 8:51PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
i know i already handed in, its to start a debate
Mar 13 2007 8:52PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
well its proven that there are innocent people on deathrow, so its worth it to kill one innocent man just so 500 criminals die? What if you were wrongly accused. so basiclly the government decides who lives or dies?
Mar 13 2007 8:53PM
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Aenigma
Posts: 11256 - Karma: 424
It was kind of redundant, you could probably work some of that out.

I see no reason why capital punishment should exist.  It is an incredibly hypocritical, primitive, and inhumane way to deal with a problem.  How can we possibly expect to teach what is right and wrong by killing people?  If you didn't like how somebody spoke around children would you tell them to shut their fucking mouth? 

Not only that, but contrary to popular belief an execution costs more than life imprisonment due to huge inefficiencies on death row and astronomical court fees.  This seems to be the biggest reason people can give in support of the death penalty; I'm not sure where they get their facts.  There is also something morally wrong with murdering people in an effort to save money.

I could go on for a while, but I'm tired and I've already written a paper on this and don't care to repeat the experience (in case my awful sentence structure didn't hint at that).  I am also curious to hear a legitimate reason why this should exist because I haven't heard any to date. 
Mar 13 2007 9:16PM
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hoodratz47
Posts: 12020 - Karma: 9,475
yeah they should totaly bring back public hangins and stoneing!
Mar 13 2007 9:24PM
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ax_murderer
Posts: 3322 - Karma: 30
i guess its good but i feel like your reasons are dumb. anybody can be ruled guilty in our judicial system??dont know where u got that from.
Mar 13 2007 10:39PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
corruption.
Mar 14 2007 9:50AM
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manzear
Posts: 843 - Karma: 849
death penalty is expensive....let people rot...its cheaper
however i am Canadian which maybe a bias...
Mar 14 2007 10:18AM
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*rkp*
Posts: 8198 - Karma: 257
solid paper.     fairly repetitive in some parts though. 
Mar 14 2007 12:04PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
its repetitive because it was in essay form, i just want to know what people think about the death penalty
Mar 14 2007 5:00PM
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Mezmerize19
Posts: 6475 - Karma: 18
hey im all for capital punishment
Mar 14 2007 5:01PM
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mothaeast
Posts: 2923 - Karma: 13
An online thread is not a place to discucc capital punishment, there are toooooo many arguments for it, like what is "Cruel and unusual" and all that shit. I'm against it, it doesnt teach shit.
Mar 14 2007 5:03PM
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Mod
Posts: 3179 - Karma: 11
Yeah, it's cheaper to let people take up room in a facility and eat food we pay for for 50 years+, right.

I personally don't think we use the death penalty enough, maybe 100 people each year die by execution and I think that is slow. The average inmate on death row spends 11 and a half years before they are executed! If it was up to me I would be killing atleast 10 people a day to help clear up death row and all our prisons for that matter.
Mar 14 2007 5:10PM
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miker92
Posts: 621 - Karma: 36
well basically i dont care how awful the person is i just cant support the death penalty... i have the will power to walk myself through being executed and it scares the living shit out of me. death by lethal injection is like my number 1 fear liek i have nightmares about it...

you dont sleep for a week before

the morning of it, the guards come and you think about how 30 minutes later you will be dead, there is no way to undo this, there is no way at this point to prevent it, theres is nothing you can do at all. yo uare completely helpless.

you walk through the prison to the death chamber.

they open the door, which is like a bank vault. it's all a weird lime green inside and theres a dentists chair with big straps on it. there are windows around the outside, which are covered with blinds. yo uwill never ever see the outside of this room again.

they strap you to the chair. using veins in your arms and legs, they insert very large intraveinous needles into you. after finding a big enough blood vessel, they leave the room and shut the big heavy door.

the blinds on the windows open. you look around and see your mother and father and a few friends looking in. everyone cries. you are at your own funeral.

a guard outside pushes a button on a machine you cannot see. liquid starts flowing into you via the needles. the 3 separate chemicals enter one after the other. a relaxant, which puts you out like for surgery. a paralyzing agent, which stops all of your muscles from working, including your heart and lungs. the third enters your blood, and effectively kills you. this third one can cause searing pain throughout the body that you cant possibly stand and also cant express because your body is paralyzed. the pain only occurs if not enough relaxant is applied, which is quite possible.

you die in 5-10 minutes. its over. dead. gone. alive and healthy in the morning, cold and dead in the afternoon. it cant be undone.

the suspense would literally drive me insane. the moments leadin up to my death would be unbearable. after thinking about this and visually experiencing it in fucked up dreams, i cannot bring myself to wish this on ANYONE, not even the meanest villain.

Mar 14 2007 5:21PM
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Aenigma
Posts: 11256 - Karma: 424
Have you done any research on this topic?  Here is a little info I used in a paper against capital punishment:

"It is sometimes suggested that abolishing capital punishment is unfair to the taxpayer, as though life imprisonment were obviously more expensive than executions. If one takes into account all the relevant costs, the reverse is true. "The death penalty is not now, nor has it ever been, a more economical alternative to life imprisonment."(49)

A murder trial normally takes much longer when the death penalty is at issue than when it is not. Litigation costs - including the time of judges, prosecutors,public defenders, and court reporters, and the high costs of briefs -- are all borne by the taxpayer.

A 1982 study showed that were the death penalty to be reintroduced in New York, the cost of the capital trial alone would be more than double the cost of a life term in prison.(50)

In Maryland, a comparison of capital trial costs with and without the death penalty for the years 1979-1984 concluded that a death penalty case costs "approximately 42 percent more than a case resulting in a non-death sentence."(51) In 1988 and 1989 th e Kansas legislature voted against reinstating the death penalty after it was informed that reintroduction would involve a first-year cost of "more than $ 11 million."(52) Florida, with one of the nation's largest death rows, has estimated that the true cost of each execution is approximately $3.2 million, or approximately six times the cost of a life-imprisonment sentence.(53)

The only way to make the death penalty a "better buy" than imprisonment is to weaken due process and curtail appellate review, which are the defendant's (and society's) only protections against the grossest miscarriages of justice. The savings in dollar s would be at the cost of justice: In nearly half of the death-penalty cases given review under federal habeas corpus, the conviction is overturned.(54)"


I suggest you read the rest because you don't seem to know enough about this to have a well-informed opinion on the subject

Mar 14 2007 5:29PM
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Aenigma
Posts: 11256 - Karma: 424
My bad, here's the link:  http://users.rcn.com/mwood/deathpen.html
Mar 14 2007 5:31PM
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charmander
Posts: 10636 - Karma: 370
i think every body in jail on non drug related crimes should just be killed right there and then like in the courtroom just strap em down and cap the muthafuckers
Mar 14 2007 6:56PM
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Dustin.
Posts: 13839 - Karma: 7,704
capital punishment is a really tough issue to deal with. its hard to put someone to death if you aren't 100% sure they are guilty. you also have to consider the effect that this has on the executioners, especially if they find they killed an innocent man.

by the way, the government doesn't decide who lives or dies, a jury does. and if that jury IS 100% positive, i support capital punishment.
Mar 14 2007 6:56PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
how could a jury be 100% sure, were they there? Innocent men have been killed before, its proven
Mar 14 2007 6:59PM
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Alpine3
Posts: 1811 - Karma: 24
I am all for capitol punishment

I also believe that we need a stricter form of punishment, we should use Thiland as a model, public lashings, all that good stuff bring that here. Just take a look at their crime rate and u will pretty much shut up.. their punishments are deterrants do doing any crime
Mar 14 2007 7:29PM
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pns513
Posts: 1966 - Karma: 12
that's a good point but...500? that's a lot
Mar 14 2007 7:31PM
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J.D.
Posts: 21362 - Karma: 5,142
Capital punishment saves money that could be used on education and health care for people who don't kill people.

DID HE JUST SAY THAT
Mar 14 2007 7:37PM
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couchskier
Posts: 614 - Karma: 10
I actually emaild dateline and requested they tazer those kid touchers. these a holes should die, there isn't any rehab for them
Mar 14 2007 8:50PM
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FartBoy05
Posts: 1306 - Karma: 9
murder is murder. no govt or group of people should have the authority to take another life. let em rot in prison.
Mar 14 2007 8:54PM
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*Fujative*
Posts: 8554 - Karma: 183
agreed
Mar 14 2007 8:55PM
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Dalonte
Posts: 367 - Karma: 28
your fucking stupid and Capital Punishment is stupid
Mar 14 2007 8:56PM
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FartBoy05
Posts: 1306 - Karma: 9
that too
Mar 14 2007 8:59PM
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DANETRON
Posts: 6671 - Karma: 137
i dont know, death is permanent...... but then again why should my tax dollars pay to keep some scum bag locked up
Mar 14 2007 9:00PM
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A_E
Posts: 15350 - Karma: 310
anybody who kills somebody else deserves to die and brun in hell, fuck all you non-death penelty liberal bitches.. fuck you
Mar 14 2007 9:04PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
i would expect a non ignorant post from somebody with 15,000 post, i'm sorry to break it to you but being pro-life is more republican. Being agianst the death penalty isnt liberal, you tried proving a point. but failed :(
Mar 14 2007 9:57PM
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suji.fnacks
Posts: 1174 - Karma: 10
all right, picture this, somebody murders your mother and your father, and now all you want is revenge. You know the killer and you get to him before the cops do and you blast his head off. Now you're going to get trailed for murder and perhaps get sentenced to death, is that fair? Is revenge justable murder? Where should the government draw the line? With all these questions, people who dont deserve to die may be executed, but who cares, kill them all you say?
Mar 14 2007 10:00PM
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Sean...M
Posts: 2450 - Karma: 14
bump gotta copy this at school
Mar 15 2007 8:15AM
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aussieskier
Posts: 805 - Karma: 182
We dont have the death penelty over here, altough i think there should be some changes to the system.
I think that in some rare cases the convicted should be killed, what they did was amazingly evil and they should be killed for it, but waiting 11 years for that to happen is pretty bullshit if you are convicted and are sentanced to death it should happen within a week.
however look at people like osama bin laden and sadam hussain, Its pretty bvious these guys were pretty fucked in the head and shuld have been killed, but killing them gives their cause a mayter which we dont want.

indonesia uses the death penalty for some pretty crazy shit like drug running and such which is pretty nuts and i dont think that should happen

so pretty much it should be decided on case by case, you should look at what they did and the consequenses of killing the person.
Mar 15 2007 10:15AM
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nitsua
Posts: 4631 - Karma: 726
im not sure if im for the death penalty but im def not against it. i think in some cases if a crime was so bad putting that person to death would be a way of letting them get free. spending countless lifeterms in prison is more effective. that would give the person endless hours to think about wat they did and wat they have to live with forever. to think about wat they did to that persons family. putting a person like that to death is the same thing as setting them free.
Mar 15 2007 11:17AM
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Aenigma
Posts: 11256 - Karma: 424
If you had read any of this thread you would know that it is cheaper to keep somebody in prison for the rest of their life.  So I guess the alternative you want must be letting everybody go?
Mar 15 2007 12:00PM
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whattheshit
Posts: 6562 - Karma: 107
If one reads Michel Foucault, "Discipline and Punish" you will see that the way we have to approach the death penalty is to understand that the body of the criminal is not corrupt, but the soul is.  You can't change the soul by punishing the body because the soul and the body is two different entities, thus punishing the body is counter-productive to the rehabilitation of the prisoner.  A Clockwork Orange for example, he under goes a unconventional form of therapy where he is subjected to ultra-violent images.  If our eyes are the windows to our soul then this form of therapy should perhaps change it shouldn't it? But as the movie shows this technique did not work out as planned. 

Atrocity, the most horrible part of torture/execution resembles the violence of the crime itself and shows the violence that is inherent in the crime.  Criminal justice should punish, not take revenge.  A suitable punishment is to find a deterent that robs the crime of all attraction.  If you decrease the desire for crime and increase the fear of penalty then you should be successful in the rehabilitation of the prisoner.  By implementing exercise, timetables, and plans into the daily routine of a prisoner you are trying to restore the obedient citizen who obeys habit, rules, and order.

I think we would have better luck with dealing with prisoners by re-instating the panopticon style prison where prisoners can be viewed from a central tower, but the prisoners cannot see the viewer because of the lights on the tower.  This makes the prisoner self concious because they feel that they are always being watched or don't know when they aren't.  This creates a behavioural change in the prisoner without the means of violence.
Mar 15 2007 12:02PM
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