Death Penalty
The Death Penalty is another hot topic around the country. Personally, I'm in favor of it. Detractors will point to DNA evidence that has gotten people released from prison and death row, which is great although I'm willing to bet more people have been rightfully convicted than wrongly executed.
Sentencing someone to death is certainly not a matter to be taken lightly, but I think we do a pretty good job with it. Someone who kills without remorse and will never be released from prison has very few redeeming qualities in my book, and after all appeals are used, and the evidence is quite clear, I see no reason to keep feeding them.
The arguement can be made that there are some inappropriate usage of the death penalty. I tend to agree to a certain point. I think it should only be used on murderers, child rapists and crimes along that level. Execution of mentally diminished folks is one I'm on the fence about. It does seem a little like putting a dog down or something like that, but then I've got to ask: Does that fact that they are mentally retarded mean they didn't actually do the crime? Well, yeah.. they did the crime, but they didn't know what they were doing! Ok, but does that mean they won't do it again?
Sentencing someone to death is certainly not a matter to be taken lightly, but I think we do a pretty good job with it. Someone who kills without remorse and will never be released from prison has very few redeeming qualities in my book, and after all appeals are used, and the evidence is quite clear, I see no reason to keep feeding them.
The arguement can be made that there are some inappropriate usage of the death penalty. I tend to agree to a certain point. I think it should only be used on murderers, child rapists and crimes along that level. Execution of mentally diminished folks is one I'm on the fence about. It does seem a little like putting a dog down or something like that, but then I've got to ask: Does that fact that they are mentally retarded mean they didn't actually do the crime? Well, yeah.. they did the crime, but they didn't know what they were doing! Ok, but does that mean they won't do it again?
posted by Mark at 8:23 PM
4 Comments:
My opinion on the death penatly is pretty simple.
It should be safe, legal, and rare.
I'm mostly opposed to the death penalty, primarily because I don't trust cops, lawyers, judges, and juries to get everything exactly right all the time.
You're probably exactly right when you say there are far more correct convictions than wrongful executions. But how many wrongful deaths is too many? I say one wrongful death is too many.
I would be a firm death penalty opponent except for one thing. Or rather one man: Timothy McVeigh. He killed 167 people and destroyed millions of dollars worth of public and private property. There're witnesses against him, there's forensic evidence, there's DNA evidence. He even confessed.
His case was investigated by the FBI's best. The prosecutors were fair and competent. His legal defense team was highly skilled, highly motivated, and totally free of charge. His judges were unbiased. His appeals were always heard.
He did it. He confessed. We killed him for it. I don't feel bad about that in the slightest.
No, that's not true. I'd have liked to see us kill him, then revive him, then kill and revive him another 166 times.
McVeigh is an atypical example, but he's the only case I can think of right off the top of my head.
McVeigh deserved to die. A lot of other people on death row deserve to die, too. But we need to raise the bar high enough to make sure we're not whacking the wrong people.
I agree with your feelings on the issue. Nice way to sum it up 7 words too.
I guess the reason I'm in favor of it has more to do with scientific advancements than anything else. DNA testing is helping get convictions right the first time, and helping get people off of death row who have been wrongly convicted. And you're absolutely right, one wrongful death is too many, but on the flipside if we abolish or suspend capital punishment until we are absolutely sure that we have it right then even people like McVeigh wouldn't have been executed, even though he wanted it.
I'm a little less sensitive to it now that I live in Texas, because we keep the chair warm down here, and Wisconsin no longer has capital punishment. I do see people getting the electric chair and lethal injection for some pretty bad stuff, but I'm not sure that the bar is high enough and thankfully the courts are starting to put some hard limits in place for who can and cannot be executed.
"Because we keep the chair warm down here."
Are you kidding? Texas hands out executions McDonald's drive-thru style. "212 seved this year." :)
I am for the Death Penalty it is obviously not a deterant as some people wanna say maybe we should start hacking some heads off like some other countries or even some hands and penisis and see how that works out
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