death penalty in Arnold´s land



MountainPro said:
If we can draw a line then it should be down to the reasons for murder. Take survival for instance, we kill animals in order to eat and live. In prehistoric times this was murder for survival. If you get into a situation where you are in a life or death situation, during war, in prison riot or similar then you have a lawless state where you may be killed unless you kill your assailant.

These may be classed by some people as murder. But to most rational thinkers, murder is pre-meditated and driven by emotion, not need. Murder is carried out by people who want to kill, not people who need to kill.

The latest execution was not a matter of need. He was no threat to anyone.

This is where i draw the line.
So Morrissey was right: Meat is murder - premeditated extinction of an innocent, driven by wants rather than need.

Surely going to war is premeditated too - one knows that one might have to kill someone, and the reason is political, not survival. If survival was the issue one might choose to stay as far away from the enemy as possible.
(Obviously there are differences between offence and defence in this scenario, but I'm thinking more of the most recent US escapades).

Personally, I'm anti-death penalty. However, I'm also anti-spending-loads-of-cash-on-prisoners. It's about time someone invented the secure cardboard box.
 
MountainPro said:
The latest execution was not a matter of need. He was no threat to anyone.

This is where i draw the line.
And everyone said he was no threat to anyone when he was sentenced to life in prison. That didn't work out very well.
The appeals process here can take 20 years to exhaust the whole thing. He was nice and healthy when he ordered the murders and was sentenced to death.
 
el Inglés said:
Am I the only one to wonder at the execution of a 76 year-old man who was blind , añmost deaf , confined to a wheelchair had diabetes and cronic heart problems ? If you wanted to really punish the SOB then letting him live would probably be the nastiest thing you could do : so is Arnold trying to use the death penalty to restore his flagging electoral popularity ?

Was he blind,deaf and in a wheelchair with diabetes when he did the crime?
There's to much kindness for the bad guy and not enough for the victims. Like the jerk that raped the 6 year old for 4 years and could get 60 days. Everyone is talking about him and hardly any talk about her wrecked rest of life.
 
shokhead said:
Was he blind,deaf and in a wheelchair with diabetes when he did the crime?
There's to much kindness for the bad guy and not enough for the victims. Like the jerk that raped the 6 year old for 4 years and could get 60 days. Everyone is talking about him and hardly any talk about her wrecked rest of life.

point one : if I had a dog in the state of health of this ba*tard it would considered an act of kindness to have it put to sleep so was killing him a punishment or a release ?

point two : is Arnie trying to regain credability by acting tough , though its always seemed to me that the religious right seem to be very selective in their reading of the new testament : just what part of " thou shalt not kill " didn´t you understand ?

overheard in a Belfast pub " thank god I´m an athiest "
 
el Inglés said:
point one : if I had a dog in the state of health of this ba*tard it would considered an act of kindness to have it put to sleep so was killing him a punishment or a release ?

point two : is Arnie trying to regain credability by acting tough , though its always seemed to me that the religious right seem to be very selective in their reading of the new testament : just what part of " thou shalt not kill " didn´t you understand ?

overheard in a Belfast pub " thank god I´m an athiest "

Thou shalt not kill? I understand but you need to ask the bad guys in jail that have killed,not me. I'm for public hanging.
 
shokhead said:
Thou shalt not kill? I understand but you need to ask the bad guys in jail that have killed,not me. I'm for public hanging.

and how , if your a christian , can you justify the daeth penalty ? surely this is one of the basic tenets of the faith or is it permited now to pick and choose , like " thou shall´t not steal " is invalid ´cause you want the guy next door´s car / lawnmower / hedgetrimmer ?
 
wheelist said:
However, I'm also anti-spending-loads-of-cash-on-prisoners.
I can agree with that, but unfortunately, we've got ourselves a system (in the US at least) where executing someone has become just as expensive (even more expensive in some states) as keeping them in prison for life.

IMO we need to address why we have so many people in prison in the first place. We're dropping the ball somewhere farther up the road. Not sure where though, but we need to figure it out.
 
MountainPro said:
If we can draw a line then it should be down to the reasons for murder. Take survival for instance, we kill animals in order to eat and live. In prehistoric times this was murder for survival. If you get into a situation where you are in a life or death situation, during war, in prison riot or similar then you have a lawless state where you may be killed unless you kill your assailant.

These may be classed by some people as murder. But to most rational thinkers, murder is pre-meditated and driven by emotion, not need. Murder is carried out by people who want to kill, not people who need to kill.

The latest execution was not a matter of need. He was no threat to anyone.

This is where i draw the line.

Just trying to provoke some thought perspective. We all see thing in a different light.
I see this constantly in civil case whereby two opposing parties have the same fact yet reach a different conclusion as to what is true.

As to the Ten Comandments,I have been told that ther literal translation goes "Thou shalt not murder" beside it also states "an eye for an eye".

I still say we should make cons. work and pay back victims and their families for their deeds. If it's a life sentence then they work for life.
 
cydewaze said:
I can agree with that, but unfortunately, we've got ourselves a system (in the US at least) where executing someone has become just as expensive (even more expensive in some states) as keeping them in prison for life.

IMO we need to address why we have so many people in prison in the first place. We're dropping the ball somewhere farther up the road. Not sure where though, but we need to figure it out.
I've never agreed with or understood the 'cost more to execute' argument. The dead guy doesn't eat, need medical/dental care, can't file frivilous lawsuits, etc. And just because you're in for life doesn't mean you can't file petitions, motions for new trial, appeals.
I do agree that we have dropped the 'ball somewhere farther up the road.' A major problem is folks in jails/prison for being mentally ill. I don't mean the 'he went nuts, took an axe and wiped out the family' type, I mean the 'We don't have anywhere else to put them' type.
 
el Inglés said:
and how , if your a christian , can you justify the daeth penalty ? surely this is one of the basic tenets of the faith or is it permited now to pick and choose , like " thou shall´t not steal " is invalid ´cause you want the guy next door´s car / lawnmower / hedgetrimmer ?

Who said i was Christian as if that has anything to do with it. Hey,i'd rather have them do life in a 6X6 cell,no tv,radio,nothing. Back to chaingang and HARD labor but that has gone away because of crying hearts for the poor badguy,again not talking about the victims. You kill,you die.
 
Chance3290 said:
I've never agreed with or understood the 'cost more to execute' argument. The dead guy doesn't eat, need medical/dental care, can't file frivilous lawsuits, etc. And just because you're in for life doesn't mean you can't file petitions, motions for new trial, appeals.
Yeah it's lame, but I think the problem is that appeals can get denied for life-in-prison people, but they're automatic for death penalty people. The trials also cost more (maybe lawyers charge more to defend capital cases? Kinda like the way your doctor charges you more for services when he finds out that your injuries were sustained in an accident, and the other guy's insurance is footing the bill).

I'm not a lawyer or anything, I'm just reciting from articles I've read. Of course, when you read an article, it's inevitably "colored" by the opinions and/or agenda of whoever is writing it, so they may choose to report only the facts that support their position.

My opinion on the death penalty swings back and forth, but my biggest problem with it is the possibility of executing an innocent person, and there have been cases where new evidence has exonerated someone. Kinda hard to exonerate a corpse though.
 
Why do some Nations / States feel they require the Death Penalty as an option in the Judicial process and others do not? I'm not trying to be facetious, but many Nations have survived for a long time without the Death Penalty, and yet their societies do not, from casual observation, appear to be worse off than those that do. Why is this so?
On the "living hell" front, I'm not so sure that this gives any value to anyone, society included. I am dubious about the deterrent factor - most people committing crimes have little intention of being caught.
In both the Tookie Williams thread, and this one, there has been concern at crimes carried out (or ordered to be carried out) whilst the persons were incarcerated. I would have thought that this is a reflection upon your prison security, rather than a reason for promoting the Death Penalty. Perhaps, if this were addressed, such orchestrated crimes would not occur.
 
EoinC said:
I am dubious about the deterrent factor - most people committing crimes have little intention of being caught.
That's an interesting point. If the death penalty was an effective deterrent, the states (speaking of the US for this example) that implemented it should have drastically lower crime rates than those that do not, but that's not the case. I don't think there's any appreciable difference in crime rates between death penalty states and non-death penalty states. I don't think the crime rate in a state would go up or down if you changed the policy on the death penalty there.

I think it's more of a personal preference among citizens of those states. Some feel that a criminal hasn't been punished properly unless he's been executed, and some don't feel that way. Maybe there's a bit of revenge in there too, I don't know. But I think some people just "feel" more vindicated if the criminal is put to death. For some reason people seem to think prison is like some country club, and the inmates are having a blast and dining on fine food. I don't think that's the case.
 
If you are to judge the death penalty, review the cases of people who have received it. Practically all of them are your worst nightmare. Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh, who set off a bomb that killed 168 people, including 25 children, many of them infants. In that case, execution was an act of vengance, pure and simple.

Nor can one simply say that only brutal societies have the death penalty. Japan has the death penalty and uses it - sentence is carried out by hanging. And Japan has one of the lowest crime rates.

In truth, the US probably still has a death penalty because not enough people are demanding it to stop. Most of us don't care one way or another, but are too busy with other matters to exert effort to protect the life of someone who raped and strangled a little girl. Not really at the top of our to-do list...
 
EoinC said:
Why do some Nations / States feel they require the Death Penalty as an option in the Judicial process and others do not? I'm not trying to be facetious, but many Nations have survived for a long time without the Death Penalty, and yet their societies do not, from casual observation, appear to be worse off than those that do. Why is this so?
On the "living hell" front, I'm not so sure that this gives any value to anyone, society included. I am dubious about the deterrent factor - most people committing crimes have little intention of being caught.
Actually, I believe that the existence of the death penalty has a negative effect. I've had several opportunities to talk with men in prisons and it looks to me like people who have been convicted of crimes have a strong fixation on the death penalty. They love to think about it and to talk about it. I've also exchanged messages on the internet with several people who seem to be absolutely giddy at the thought of someone being executed. I think that's sick! I think that the existence of the death penalty and the discounting of the value that it puts on life causes people to lower their standards about when it's acceptable to kill another person.

My opposition to the death penalty has little to do with the individuals that it is imposed upon. My opposition has to do with the negative effects that I think that it has on the rest of us. I think that it makes us a more barbaric society.
 
JohnO said:
Nor can one simply say that only brutal societies have the death penalty. Japan has the death penalty and uses it - sentence is carried out by hanging. And Japan has one of the lowest crime rates.
If you're trying to say there's no correlation between the death penalty and crime rates, I agree. You can find countries both with and without the death penalty that have low crime rates, and vice versa.
 
JohnO said:
If you are to judge the death penalty, review the cases of people who have received it. Practically all of them are your worst nightmare. Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh, who set off a bomb that killed 168 people, including 25 children, many of them infants. In that case, execution was an act of vengance, pure and simple.

.... McVeigh is just one - that because of the 'nightmare' nature gets lots of publicity.

Go back and see who these "nightmares" are. Most death penalty cases *aren't* mass murder. Just the 'death penalty poster children.'
 
Good point Eoin, i would be interested to hear the reasons (excuses) behind this.

They say that Iraq was barbaric because it executes its prisoners in public some of the time. I bet if it were shown on prime time TV in the west the vewing figuers would be very high.

EoinC said:
Why do some Nations / States feel they require the Death Penalty as an option in the Judicial process and others do not? I'm not trying to be facetious, but many Nations have survived for a long time without the Death Penalty, and yet their societies do not, from casual observation, appear to be worse off than those that do. Why is this so?
.
 
MountainPro said:
Good point Eoin, i would be interested to hear the reasons (excuses) behind this.

They say that Iraq was barbaric because it executes its prisoners in public some of the time. I bet if it were shown on prime time TV in the west the vewing figuers would be very high.
In the west,we make movies about it.
That's just "entertainment",of course.


:confused:
 
stevebaby said:
In the west,we make movies about it.
That's just "entertainment",of course.


:confused:
why are some people who are tried and convicted of murder are given life sentences and others who are tried and convicted of murder are given death sentences.

There is one guy in the US who is on death row after allegedly setting fire to a house in a revenge attack. He didnt realise there was a child inside who subsequently burned to death.

He has always denied he was responsible.

Others who kill in a premeditated and calculated fashion are given life.

why?
 

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