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About LinkBacksThe default position for the judges should be to avoid if you can. But the DP option is there.Originally Posted by Saracen
The default position for the judges should be to avoid if you can. But the DP option is there.
The points Saracen makes are valid, but I fear they are a little naive. In the US for example (And in fact nearly all the countries that have the DP) they have a criteria that is (supposedly) used with regards to the DP, and initially the DP was supposed to be used in the circumstances Saracen described; Unusually heinous crimes, multiple murders etc and where there was virtually no doubt about the convicted persons guilt. What that has progressed to now in the US (and in other countries that use the DP) is you have had children and those who most right minded people would consider to be mentally disturbed at best and insane (not criminally insane) at worst, amongst those who have been executed. What makes anyone think that this won't happen in the UK?
I appreciate that just because something may be implemented incorrectly elsewhere, it shouldn't rule out someone else trying to implement it in a better way. But we are talking about people's lives, sorry just doesn't cut it when mistakes are made, and it's very hard go back when the well intentioned ideal deviates or snowballs from what was initially planned.
You're a bit out of date there, at least in regard to juveniles. This has not happened in the US for some years, since the US Supreme Court ruled on the matter. See Roper v. Simmons. 2005, IIRC.
All it took was a Supreme Court ruling that included this within the definition of the 8th Amendment, and that means any further attempts by States to carry out such an execution will be unconstitutional, would be immediately appealed and, given that States cannot overrule the USSC, would be upheld.
Hence, my pointing out that a direct comparison between the US system and the DP here is not valid, simply because the legal systems are not the same. Where this type of "creep" occurs is where legislation, usually very old legislation drafted before issues became clear or in different times where different standards ruled, has yet to catch up with events. It isn't because legislation is expanded deliberately to include it, it's because it was too widely drafted back when it was drafted.
If we were to bring back the DP (and as I said, it isn't going to happen in anything remotely resembling the near or medium term, or ever unless things change rapidly) all it requires is to accurately define minimum offence criteria that have to be met, and to define specific exclusions, such as "does not apply to any individual under 18 at the time the crime occurred".
Oh, and of the ONLY 7 other states besides the US that have executed "children" in the last 20 years or so, including the likes of Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and China, ALL have either abolished it or publicly disavowed it.
I don't see how this is an issue here, if the DP were brought back. You simply exclude it in the legislation.
A "little naive"? I don't think so.
I know this thread may be a little bit old (is 3 days too old?) but I have always held the same opinion on this subject and wanted to weigh in.
I don't think the death penalty is really a viable punishment, for one very basic reason: we know nothing about death and what may or may not come afterwards. Sure, for those of us who believe in the afterlife (among whom I am not), it's pretty cut and dry; murderer murders someone, dies for his crime and is plonked into hell for eternity. Bing bang boom. However, not even those people can say for sure that they know for sure what happens after death. Therefore, capital punishment is akin to saying to someone, "As a punishment for your crime, you are to walk through that door over there. I don't know what's behind it, and neither does anyone else. Off you go, now,".
For all we know, people go to the Interactive Museum of Chocolate and Puppies after they die. It's certainly just as likely as anything else. So why is it done? Essentially, the punishment is the fear that we presuppose these people feel about their own mortality. That is flawed, again for one simple reason: I think human nature itself has shown that there are many people who do not fear their own death - for those people, lifelong incarceration would be the superior choice of punishment, but that is not taken into account. Also, we've all heard the stories of death row prisoners who convert to Christianity and are therefore absolved of their crimes through religion - these people no longer fear death, because they are now sure they will go to heaven, having been cleansed through penitence or confession. To me, that feels as unjust as the crime itself.
In my mind, surely the most fitting forms of punishment are those which are tailored, specifically, to the fears and desires of the individual. Of course, due process would preclude this in any society, but it is arguable that it is the only sort of punishment that would guarantee that the criminal suffers for their crime. Even lifelong incarceration isn't foolproof, but it is the sort of sentence most likely to make the highest number of offenders suffer, which, after all, is sort of the whole point. My idea is impossible to implement, obviously, for many reasons, but it is the only punishment variable enough to take into account all the possibilities.
One thing I should clarify, though, is that if somebody hurt my friends or family, I would want them to die. But I would want it to be at my hand, not in some government-sanctioned place where it's guaranteed that they'll be treated humanely, and die painlessly; there would be no catharsis in that.
Like the film running man, gamer, and death race. Should be done! only the winning criminal should just be allowed to live in prison, not set free.
I don't think it's a simple as an eye for an eye. Firstly that's bronze age doctrine that won't yield anything useful whatsoever other than learn from it's obvious moral stupidity. Cases like manslaughter start to make things complicated and the fact that people can be wrongly convicted (DNA is 99.9% accurate so 1 person every 1000 cases can be wrongly convicted). The question is could you have that one innocent person on your concious?
Not every murder case is clear cut as the one you mentioned so it's difficult to assign a death penalty to a particular niche; things like mental stability come into play and we find ourselves miles away from black & white or right & wrong. There's no moral high ground in this topic and there's no point in finding it. The only thing we can do is settle for the lesser evil.
You're right about DNA, false emperor, but you've understated the inaccuracy of it a bit. New Scientist ran an article about it a few months ago, and discovered that a lot of it was down to individual lab interpretation. DNA evidence for the same fictional case was sent to three different labs, who each returned a different result. There are actually a number of different ways of comparing DNA, and the method used also had an impact on the result. It was a while ago but I believe the amount of information the lab was given about the case itself also had an impact on their result.
Their reason for running the article, apart from the fact that it was interesting, was to attempt to open people's eyes to the fact that DNA evidence is far from foolproof. Juries tend to believe that DNA evidence is as good as the truth, primarily from watching TV shows and reading books, which undoubtedly has led to many false imprisonments which are still ongoing today. That's conjecture, of course, but it's likely that courts wouldn't entertain appeals that rely on re-examining DNA evidence using a different procedure.
jackvdbuk (02-05-2011)
Im quite young and not experienced enough to talk about big issues like this :S but in my personally the way i think of it is if you take a life you owe up to taking your own as you dont deserve to live. However, another thing to take in mind....who will be the one to put down that guilty person who committed the crime? would you want to be that person? Thats the hard thing.
No. I don't think any civilized country should indulge in legalized murder. Its kind of hypocritical to punish somebody for murder by murdering them.
Plus I actually thinks its an easy way out for some. What we need is proper life sentences and less comfortable prisons. You see some cells on these documentary shows and they look like a teenagers bedroom with all the mod cons!
Oh and some forms of execution are just barbaric. When you can actually smell them burning(electric chair) then thats just not right.
Not all killing is murder, and by implication, not even wrong. Killing in self-defence, for a start, is not. As the only alternative to you or your loved ones being killed or seriously hurt, lethal force is an option.
The word "murder" is a legal term, not one of fact, and it means, simply put, certain types of unlawful killing. By definition, therefore, if a killing, by the state or otherwise, is lawful, it's not murder.
Not, as I understand it, if it's done properly. If you use the right materials, that doesn't happen. One cause is the wrong type of sponge, and another is inadequate saline.
But it's really not germane to the question at hand, which is whether certain heinous acts justify the death penalty or not. If that's the only objection, we simply stipulate that we won't use that method. Nothing in support for the principle of the death penalty implies specific forms of DP, and we could use, for example, nitrogen asphyxiation.
well Ive said why I disagree on principle. A life for a life is hypocrisy. A civilized nation should be above that thinking and take the higher ground. Not because they deserve sympathy or compassion but because we shouldn't stoop to their level. Death is not the only suitable punishment. Nor do I think its a deterent to others.
and how people are executed is relevant to the question because this is the reality of a death sentence. Some methods are more humane than others.
As an opinion, fair enough. But as a claim of fact, you need to justify that, and a bald assertion that it's hypocrisy doesn't make it so.
On the deterrent point, I'm inclined to agree. As for the rest, again, as an opinion, fine. We all have them.
That's why the method isn't relevant to the principle of whether we have the death penalty or not. We simply use a "humane" one and the fact that there are inhumane ones doesn't matter.
Let me put it this way. Suppose an absolutely humane method exists, would you support the death penalty IF that method was used? My guess is .... no. If you reject the DP because of the reasons you gave (hypocrisy, not stooping, etc), etc, then the method used doesn't matter, you just think it's wrong.
On the other hand, if there are 'reasonably' humane methods, perhaps including nitrogen asphyxiation, then the fact that there are barbaric ways of doing it is irrelevant if you aren't proposing to use them.
Either way, the method isn't relevant, unless perhaps you can assert (and justify) that ALL methods are inhumane.
Spree killers tend to kill themselves , ever noticed that ?
Serial killers want to achieve notoriety. They are now 'naming' themselves , even befpre the tabloids have a chance to hand out nasty moinkers.
Familicide (see WIKI) usually ends in suicide.
People killing the offspring to get revenge on their partners , then offing themselves.
I saw a documentary about american schools massacres and the psych advisors all agreed that the best why to stop further tragedies was to minimise media exposure over the assailants - media could very comply.
There is no rational logic basis for compounding murder with murder.
If you confront murder with emotions then you are descending into an arena that belongs to the murderer.
If you are at war with something , you are free to keep killing , but no solution will follow.
Revenge is for the fearful
COCO
I agree with all of the first half of that Coco, but part company on the second.
For a start, the DP is not murder, for the reason given a couple of posts ago. Nor does it need to have, or indeed, should have anything to do with emption, and very little or nothing to do with revenge. And there is certainly a logic basis for the DP. People can disagree with the rights and wrongs, the "morals", but there is a logical argument, and it's been given at length in this thread.
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