Those who murder once with no prior history of violence should not qualify for the death penalty. (a restraining order is prior history)

Perhaps a point system for violence would be helpful. I would like a judge to be able to tell someone convicted of assault and battery, “Mr. criminal, your past history and current conviction have now earned you ten points. If you are convicted of murder in the future, you will be executed.” And then it should be mandatory.

How about one point for drunk driving? If you have earned ten such points and are convicted of vehicular manslaughter, you also get the death penalty.

In the worst case, if someone is innocent of the final crime, at least we would still be executing a very bad person.

In any case, I suppose somebody ought to stick up for the “collateral damage” theory of executing the innocent, so I guess I will.

We have all sorts of social institutions that predictably result in the death of many innocents. Perhaps the best example is the automobile and associated infrastructure — people die in car crashes every year, tens of thousands of them, and we accept that as a price of personal freedom and mobility.

People die in swimming pools, and in boating accidents, and skiing.

Most of those people are innocent. I think that we should take reasonable steps to reduce accidental deaths of these sorts, but I also think that those deaths are a reasonable price to pay for stuff we want. Perhaps I would change my mind if I were killed in a car crash, but ex ante I accept the small risk in exchange for personal mobility.

By the same token, there are some folks out there who choose to hurt others. As I am not one who would fare particularly well in the state of nature, I am glad that we have social institutions designed to control persons prone to interpersonal violence. We try to identify miscreants and then either confine them or in very rare cases kill them.

Sure, it would totally suck to be imprisoned for life or executed for a crime you didn’t commit, just as it sucks to be killed or paralyzed in a car crash. But we might very well decide that the social benefits of the death penalty outweigh the costs, including executing the innocent from time to time.

Of course we might also decide that the permanence issue is such that any marginal benefits of execution over life imprisonment aren’t worth it. I’d probably lean that way myself, but I don’t think it’s impossible to construct an argument for the death penalty even if one agrees that the innocent get executed sometimes.

I will add two things. First, of course we ought to do everything possible to increase the accuracy of trial procedures. This definitely includes bringing the rigors of real science to forensic science.

Second, if I were wrongfully convicted of a horrible crime, I personally would want to be given the death penalty. Both because life in prison strikes me as being a “fate worse than death” and because getting folks riled up about my innocence would probably be easier if I were on death row.

So, it doesn’t come down to “do you trust the state?”, it comes down to “which thing do you expect the state to screw up less?”

Considering the massive support those with the death penalty seem to get for appeal after appeal, especially compared to those who get life in prison, it seems to me that the innocent man is more likely to exonerated with a death penalty conviction than a life in prison conviction.

So that leaves me supporting the death penalty as the thing most likely to screw over the fewest innocent people while achieving some significant portion of the desired goal of removing the human waste from society. I make no claim that there is no cost in innocent people, I only believe it to be a lower cost than the alternative. What party takes that innocence (the state or human waste that the state should have removed from society) does not matter to me, only finding the balance where the least is taken in total, as either is equally bad.

No one, I don’t think, brought up the central practical problem with the death penalty within our justice system. It’s irreversible if evidence comes to light after the execution. With life in prison, unless Antonin Scalia’s your judge, convictions can be overturned and the wrongly accused set free.

Having been brought up a pacifist, my initial distaste for the death penalty came on moral grounds. But the logical/practical argument is far more convincing to people who actually give a shit whether innocent people live or die. Most people haven’t thought about it past, oh well they were convicted, they should be put to death within an hour of conviction. We simply cannot allow ourselves to descend to the level of the criminal for any reason.

Emotionally, there have been times in which I have had the desire to have someone die for their heinous crime(s). But the law(s) and justice should not be subject to emotion, only reason, logic, and absolute proof of guilt.

One innocent executed by the state is one too many, the “death penalty” must be abolished. One innocent in prison is one too many, the standard of “proof” must be raised.

I see we are still not able to speak without using racist terminology. I really was moved by your alien genocide speech…If only you would take the first step and jump into a volcano I’m sure everyone here would be thankf…I mean follow you. Yes. Follow you.

Troll much?

For instance Dr. Joe Blow may shoot his wife between the eyes and because of his ‘long-standing good name’ the DA will not seek the DP.

Then if millworker Harry Hoghead shoots his wife between the eyes, the same DA will most likely seek the DP.

I’ve seen this happen more times than I’d like to remember.

So tell me HOW we can call ourselves and ‘fair and just’ society?

I recently sat on the steps of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Above the might columns was engraved the words, “EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW”

I beg to differ.

Can someone tell me at what point did we begin to IGNORE those words?

I really hope your not serious. First, the idea that “collateral damage” is ever acceptable is just disgusting. Seriously, calling it “collateral damage” does not negate the fact that you are advocating a system where innocent people are killed. You are advocating the death of innocent people. Are you really comfortable being that close to committing murder yourself? I mean really, your basically in the same situation as someone who hires a hitman. You are advocating and paying for a 3rd party to kill a person.

Second, are you really advocating an OT style justice system? So we should stone homosexuals, blasphemers, and people who eat pork? I -really- hope your joking about this part. The bible is the -last- place you would want to get your legal system from.

Oh, and I like how you added #3 in there, even though you clearly say that it has no “codification.” Lying for jesus are we?

“If you think that any human system of justice is infallible, then you are ignorant. If you think that no person has been falsely condemned to death, then you are naive. If you think that even one innocent person, ripped from heir life and their passion and to put to death at the hands of the state is in any way justifiable, then you are evil.” -Joshua W. H. Steiner

“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.” – Albert Camus

I am opposed to the DP for the reason Radley gave and also I believe in God’s word.

“THOU SHALT NOT KILL”

“VENGEANCE IS MINE”, sayeth the Lord.

Several people have asked me which GUILTY person should go free versus having an innocent person imprisoned or sentenced to death. My answer is simple and in the form of a question, “Which of the over 135 people who have been EXONERATED from death row should have been executed?

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-and-death-penalty

Then of course we have CLOWNS like Huckleberry (Steven) Hayne and Wild and Wooley (Michael) West in Mississippi who aren’t happy enough with finding TRUE evidence but CREATING FALSE evidence to secure wrongful convictions.

State sanctioned murder only creates more victims like the condemned’s loved ones. People conveniently forget that even if the condemned person is guilty, the loved ones are not. Yet they are forced to suffer just as the victim’s family.

The victim’s family always cries out for ‘closure’ but who and what gives the executed’s family so-called ‘closure’?

The DP does not resurrect the victim or changed what occurred.

After the condemned is executed, the ‘punishment’ ENDS.

PLEASE help me fight for justice in Mississippi by signing my petition: http://www.gopetition.com/online/25939.html

“Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

Life in prison is a just sentence. An eye for an eye gets what exactly?

One member – ONE – was moved by the Willingham story and the questions it raises enough to be completely swayed, reversing what had previously been a rabid advocacy of capital punishment. For the rest, however, it simply forced them to state for the record that, yes, some collateral damage is acceptable in their opinions. How do you counter that??? How do you address an individual who will readily admit that they are okay with the execution of innocent civilians for what amounts to principle?

It depends on how avoidable the collateral damage is. If we had a system like the Old Testament law, collateral damage would be acceptable for a few reasons:

1) There would be only eye witnesses and video evidence.

2) Perjury would be immediately punished by a summary sentencing to the punishment for the crime for which the defendant is being tried.

3) Any private citizen may, at any time, up until the moment of the sentence be carried out, interrupt the proceeding to introduce new evidence or challenge the witnesses (this was a cultural thing not codified into the Mosaic Law).

Within the confines of a biblical system, I am an eye-for-an-eye, pro-capital punishment individual. In our secular system, it’s implementation is an abomination.

Given the system we have now, I’d say especially the jury. They should be skeptical of the prosecution and treat every judge as if they are withholding crucial evidence.