Just Another Reason I Support The Death Penalty.

[CAJoe]

Here's something that happened where I live several years ago.

Two guys robbed a liquor store.

A few minutes later, their car was pulled over for speeding, by a cop who had no idea that this car was being driven by people who had committed a robbery.

The driver shot and killed the cop.

Other officers joined the pursuit, and to make a long story short: the killer was himself killed in a gun battle with police, while the unarmed accomplish was caught and arrested after trying to flee on foot.

Under Minnesota law, you can be given the death penalty if you were involved in a crime in which a police officer was killed. The accomplice was convicted and sentenced to death. During the trial, the letters to the editor in the local paper were filled with letters crying out for justice and therefore supporting the conviction and sentence.

So I thought to myself: what if the actual killer has been taken alive? What if he had received the death penalty and the accomplice had recieved a lesser sentence? I strongly suspect that most of those letter writers would have been perfectly satisfied with that scenario and felt that justice had been served. (Admittedly, I cannot ever know this, of course. But consider what your own reaction would be.)

But the murderer had inconveniently been killed, so we the public could not vent our anger on him. So his accomplice, who as I recall did not even realize that the killer was carrying a gun during the robbery, was the recipient of the public's wrath in the true murderer's place.

I concluded that in this case at least, the death penalty was less about people's sense of justice and more about a need for vengeance. After all, if a lighter sentence for the accomplice would have been considered a just sentence in the hypothetical case in which the killer survived , how can that lighter sentence NOT be considered just in the actual scenario in which the killer was dead? Either the accomplice deserves death or he doesn't, regardless of who else survived to stand trial.

We have a department of justice and a department of corrections, but not a department of vengeance.

If the law says "you can be given the death penalty if you were involved in a crime in which a police officer was killed" then the letter of the law was applied. He was involved in the crime and an officer was killed. Justice is blind and the law needs to be applied as writtin.

 

[Alwayslit]

I am all for bringing back public executions. These people should be hung in the town square, send a message that this will not be tolerated. Someone who can do that to another human is a monster and does not belong in society.

It might be coming sooner than you think. I wouldn't take too much joy in that fact.

 

[Tobacco Giant]

These are the responses I would expect on this forum...which is good, because it reminds why I don't spend much time on any online forum.

And my last comment on this thread:



How is hanging someone in public any less barbaric than what they did? Isn't the act in response just as monstrous? For centuries, capital punishment has proven itself not to be a determent. Forcing people to conform to a chosen morality through fear will never create a environment free of these acts. Raising people to think for themselves, and not condition them into patterns will lead to less of this.

If you'd like to get into a fair, civilized and honest debate than let's get into a fair, civilized and honest debate. No offense, I'm sure you're a great guy but your presence in this thread was nothing more than a hit and run where you've laid out your opinion and would not stay to discuss the rationale.

 

[ChazHollywood]

DNA evidence is largely indisputable.

Indisputable in what it proves, but there are a lot of things it doesn't prove.

If my DNA is found on a dead hooker, does that prove that I killed her?

-Charles

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

 

[criollo]

CAJoe:

I do not disagree with what you say. My post was more about people's feelings about the death penalty (and what may lie behind them) than about the law.

 

[ciggy]

Okay..to be blunt, harsher punishement would make people with criminal tendecies to think twice about what there going to commit.
Our week judicial system and resort prison living standards don't scare these people at all. Hell, there killing olice offecers these days like it's a new hunting season.
Not saying the death penalty is the answer but it sure would protect alot of innocent lives.

 

[CWS]

Okay..to be blunt, harsher punishement would make people with criminal tendecies to think twice about what there going to commit.
Our week judicial system and resort prison living standards don't scare these people at all. Hell, there killing olice offecers these days like it's a new hunting season.
Not saying the death penalty is the answer but it sure would protect alot of innocent lives.

It has been a long time since my masters thesis but at the time the consensus was that capital punishment was not a deterrent. Capital criminals don't think about getting caught or the penalty. We used to hang outlaws and that didn't deter outlaws. It just made fewer outlaws. It is 100% effective against recidivism. It is also 100% final.

 

[CAJoe]

It has been a long time since my masters thesis but at the time the consensus was that capital punishment was not a deterrent. Capital criminals don't think about getting caught or the penalty. We used to hang outlaws and that didn't deter outlaws. It just made fewer outlaws. It is 100% effective against recidivism. It is also 100% final.

If that is the case the death penalty is even more important. They think they will not be caught or do not care, they are going to kill/rape anyway. These monsters need to be taken out of society completely.

 

[Musterion]

It is 100% effective against recidivism. It is also 100% final.

Can't argue with that...

 

[Tobacco Giant]

Indisputable in what it proves, but there are a lot of things it doesn't prove.

If my DNA is found on a dead hooker, does that prove that I killed her?

-Charles

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

I agree. There are also a lot of things it does prove using a reasonable standard.

I agree the standard of evidence that must be presented to consider the death penalty should be very, very high. But those who argue against the death penalty completely are devaluing life.