Your views on the Death Penalty

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My view is this I can not accept taking some ones life for a crime. Because even if he killed let's say four women taking his life. Will not give that girl's family peace it will it's better if we just give them life in prison. Let them rot for the crimes they commited better to let the suffering last that way then to end their life. For the crime they commited.

What do you think about the death penalty?

I am dying to see it repealed.

ruveyn

Human life is either sacred (not necessarily in a religious sense) or it is not.
Executing anyone means human life is not sacred in the eyes of the law, and what is not sacred in law will not be held sacred by the people. I therefore believe the death penalty leads to a more murderous society, not a less murderous one.

By enforcing the Death Penalty. Killing those who commited a crime, the State becomes a killer. No better then the man who commited the crime.

In principle I can see the death penalty being warranted for certain crimes but I've gotten to point where I don't trust that it can be carried out fairly.

I think it's asinine and archaic, but I don't have any emotional stance on it. I mean, if someone really killed an innocent person thoroughly in cold blood, totally without remorse, I'm not going to loose any sleep over the guy frying. But I think that the death penalty makes us look like illiterate savages.

I don't have a problem with it in principle. In practice, it is ridiculous to use it with common criminals -- it is not a good deterrent and it is very costly to use fairly. It might be useful as a symbol and as an exceptionnal measure in political cases (e.g. the Nürnberg trials), but such cases are exceptionnal enough that it might be safer to simply disallow the death penalty in general.

I don't like it, I tend to imagine what the person is feeling at the moment before their death and it really bothers me.

Personally I'm pro-death penalty (I live in the UK).

I agree that life is sacred but consider life as what you live as more important than life as the state of just existing - thus one reason why I was once anti-death penalty because to commit a crime so horrific as to warrant the death penalty it is a harsher punishment for that person to suffer the rest of their lives thinking about what they have done...

...the problem is that such criminals don't always suffer the rest of their lives thinking about what they've done, some simply don't care or will never understand what they have done, they also grow accustomed to prison life so much so that it is no longer a punishment as it should be and as such in my opinion life imprisonment is not a good enough punishment or deterrent...

...putting to death a murderer won't bring back their victims or always bring peace or closure to the victims families, but what does keeping them alive achieve? Keeping someone alive in jail long-term is counter-productive to society, they've already shown a disregard for society, laws and human life and as such I believe we should expel such people from our society - it's unlikely they'd leave jail to become a normal productive member of society, in jail they serve no purpose, they take-up jail spaces and taxpayers money...as well as potentially put others at risk.

Putting them to death will solve nothing I mean what if they where defending themselfs then was put on trial for murder? Would it be justice to kill that person for defending himslef?

First, I see the criminal justice system as too fallible and the death penalty as too final.

There will always be the confessed sociopath for whom there is no doubt as to guilt, but I see those cases as exceptional rather than typical. In typical cases, guilt is determined by a fair, impartial system that is prone, nonetheless to error. We can minimize error, but we cannot eliminate it.

Second, I see capital punishment as inimical to an important goal of the criminal law: rehabilitation. Yes, punishment and deterrence are important goals, but so too is the goal that prisoners, whether they are to be released back into the community or not, can be rehabilitated from the behaviours that got them into prison in the first place. Even if a creature like Paul Bernardo is never to walk free again, I would still like to believe that he is being provided the opportunity to grow and improve while in prison.

If human life is held to be sacred, then the life of a convict is not less sacred because of the money it costs to keep him/her alive. It is not less sacred because we are certain of the convict's guilt, or because the convict does not feel badly about what he or she has done. It is not less sacred because seeing them die might alleviate the suffering of the victim's family. It is not made more or less sacred depending on whether the convict's death will deter future crime. It is sacred because it is human life, and that can never be diminished by circumstance.