The Death Penalty - To what degree is it right or wrong?

[Lowlife Adventures]

>"I dont trust the government to kill people teehee"

You trust them to steal your money and use it to lock up large parts of the population for their entire lives, but giving a bad man a shot of the ol' byebye juice is a step too far?
lol get fucked

I'm not strongly for or against the death penalty, but to play devil's advocate: you can theoretically reverse stealing money and locking up people, but you can't reverse the execution of someone innocent. If the government is already shit, why give it even more power to be shit?

 

[Bone Santa]

I don't trust the government to not fuck up a simple order of McDonald's, I don't like that they rob me but it's not like I can do anything about it

I'm with you, but since we allow them to do the other stuff, why not the death penalty too. I mean if we gotta have feds running our shit and getting their hands dirty, then let's at least get a few pedos and murderers taken care of in the process.

I'm not strongly for or against the death penalty, but to play devil's advocate: you can theoretically reverse stealing money and locking up people, but you can't reverse the execution of someone innocent. If the government is already shit, why give it even more power to be shit?

Stealing money sure, locking people up absolutely not. We all like to play pretend that an innocent man, locked up for 30 years wrongfully can just resume their life as before after release, but they really can't. They are fucked.

The government is shit I agree, but since we have no choice in it being shit and running stuff shitly, let's at least let them get their hands dirty and not ours.

 

[The Gene Genie]

In its current system? No. My feelings are dual: On one hand, liberal advocates have utterly cucked the system and have managed to turn the death penalty sentence into an infinite money generator for lawyers to gum up the judicial system in appeal after appeal so that by the time a prisoner is executed, he's spent years on death row and sucked up perhaps millions of taxpayer money. On the other, I feel that personally in this day and age that the "standard for evidence" to go ahead with the death penalty is far too low. It's an irreversible decision once carried out, so I feel strongly that the standard should be higher.

The system would have to entirely be reformed for me to support it. The standard for evidence should be incontrovertible, bordering on essentially audio-visual proof of the crime or a straight-up confession, or perhaps even both, with the usual assignment of evidence for a standard criminal trial. This evidence needs to be at a level that there isn't just the burden of proof leaning guilty, but rather an incontrovertible and indisputable evidence of guilt. Furthermore, I would remove the ability of lawyers to constantly and endlessly spam the judicial system with appeal after appeal. There can be one appeal, and that is it. There should also be a hard-cap on when the execution must take place. I would say that anywhere between six months to a year of initial sentencing would be adequate.

On the method of execution, I would say that we have gone too far trying to make things "humane" (see: less unpleasant to watch/more clinical and cold in feeling) and return to simplicity. A good hangman will kill a man as quickly and as surely, probably even more quicker and more surer, than a needle. I do not agree with using the firing squad, as that should be reserved for soldiers and more "honorable" forms of execution. Common criminals should be hanged until death.

I would also, in addition to these, return this to a public spectacle. Each district or state or whatever you'd like would have a designated execution location, where condemned criminals will be taken to be hanged. Partially for the sheer retributive justice of it, partially for the example it will set, and partially to sate and redirect the natural tendency of human bloodlust.

 

[topsykrets]

While I like the death penalty I think we'd be better off bringing back cruel and unusual punishments. Public floggings, shame masks, the stocks, tar and feather, gibbeting, oubliette, gladiatorial combat, ball and chain, gelding, etc.

 

[Sparkling Yuzu]

I don't think it's immoral to kill someone who caused harm to others in crimes such as rape, murder etc. Some death penalty opposers saying taking a life is always wrong but I don't think so. Not in the case of ridding the world of serial killers and rapists. The only ethical issue is false conviction, not taking people's lives.

 

[Big Brutus]

Appeals need to be streamlined. There's no reason it should take thirty years to execute someone.

Death sentences shouldn't require a jury to agree unanimously. 8 out of 12 jurors agreeing on imposing a death sentence should be enough.

Anyone who commits rape, a child-oriented sex offense, terrorism, slavery or some flavor of particularly heinous murder, should be eligible for a death sentence, and it should be mandatory if the victim is a child.

The method should be firing squad. However, I'm interested in seeing nitrogen hypoxia being tested and becoming the primary method if it's shown to be humane and effective.

Finally, prosecutors and judges shouldn't get to decide whether or not to pursue the death penalty or impose it. That's too much power to place into the hands of a single person. It should ultimately be up to the jury, and only them, on whether or not the death penalty is an appropriate disposition, especially considering the biased/political nature of prosecutors and judges.

 

[Never Scored]

I support the death penalty for posting wrongthink on Kiwi Farms. Please kill me, government.

 

[GoFundMe]

I’m ambivalent, like I’m not necessarily for or against it. I think it’s too broad and too arbitrary, tho. Like I think it should only be used in cases where there’s 2+ victims, unless the victim is a child. Like James Holmes (movie theater shooter in Aurora, CO) didn’t get the death penalty (and CO had the DP at that time and prosecutors were seeking it, but the jury ultimately decided on a life sentence), but some guy in Texas who stabbed a guy in a fight did? Obviously, stabbing a guy to death is bad and he should be punished, but the DP is supposed to be designed for “the worst of the worst” and to me, as far as murders go, there’s people who have done worse who didn’t get the death penalty. Do you see what I’m saying? For states that have the DP, seems like it depends on who the DA is in the county where the murder occurred and at the particular time your case is being tried. Like if there happens to be a liberal DA in office at the time, they may not seek the death penalty, whereas a more conservative DA might be more inclined to do so. Also, if you’re in a rural county, they’re more inclined to do so because they have less of a caseload to deal with, so DA’s aren’t nearly as swarmed with murder cases as they would be in an urban county.

 

[Stan]

I'm against it. From a spiritual perspective, if God thinks you deserve to die for what you did he has the power to make that happen. From a practical perspective, it doesn't seem to work as a deterrent and it's not any cheaper than a life sentence. And from a human perspective, the probability that somebody gets executed for crimes they never committed approaches 1 the more the death penalty is applied. A convict can be released from prison if they're exonerated, but they can't come back from the dead.

Prison sucks, especially if you know you're never getting out. That's probably a worse fate than death.

 

[AgendaPoster]

I don't believe in grugg eye for an eye justice, unless the guilty part truly pisses me off.
Even then, a civilized, European society should be characterized by relative unempathetic coldness and keeping your distance from being emotionally incontinent, and vengeful rage is in that category.
But if you fuck up badly, we will isolate you from society for sure, and use your labor too as a way of paying said society for your crimes.

 

[GoFundMe]

I meant to say. Earlier this year, I met a woman who was penpals with this guy. I get the impression they may have been a little more than that, actually, just from the way she talked about him. He’s been dead for 10 years now, but yeah. She told me the conditions there (Texas death row) are pretty hardcore, like all visits are behind glass, no touching allowed, locked down 23 hours a day in solitary, etc.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2315051/amp/Richard-Cobb-Murderers-sarcastic-comment-prison-warden-caps-Death-Row-inmates-final-words.html

 

[Hyperbola]

I'm not exactly "indifferent", more just conflicted.

I don't trust our legal system. Tyranny of judges and lawyers applying lunatic laws against people with handpicked juries. It's not what our legal system was supposed to be, at all. I *would* trust juries more, if they were actual juries of your peers, not morons handpicked by lawyers to be biddable, and browbeaten by the judges and baliffs to abdicate their judgement. They are the ones who are supposed to be in charge of the process.

On the other hand, I think something like the death penalty would be more merciful than long-term imprisonment, much less the sort of long term imprisonment we subject people to in this country. (I have absolutely no idea why some people go snortling about prison rape and other horrors, as if it's some kind of feature, instead of a total damnation of our system that these things happen in an environment that is absolutely controlled, de-facto blessed by the sort of sadists in charge.) Rather than being violated, spiritually or physically, for decades, I'd definitely take death.

Same thing with corporal punishment. We have this utterly bizarre idea that locking someone in a cage for the majority of their adult life, absolutely ruining their futures if they ever make it out, is somehow better/more-humane than brief physcial pain and calling it good, or a few days in public stocks or something. Cruel and unusual? What's more cruel and unusual?

 

[Makhnovshchina]

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

But the last guy will still have at least one eye by the end

 

[Dagoth AMOGUS]

it's always been a shiny-object faux culture war. There are muuuuch more important things to worry about than some serial killer spending 20 years on death row. Who cares. It affects like 100 people a year out of 400 million in America.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

It's pretty simple.
Pedophilia? Death.
Murder? Depends on whether or not you killed a pedophile.
Just follow this simple guide.

 

[Neighborhood Curmudgeon]

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

And turning the other cheek all the time leaves everyone brain damaged.

 

[Magicicada_septendecula]

I think it is morally acceptable to execute someone for murder and even other crimes like child molestation or anything else where someone is damaged for life. However, I think the possibility of executing even one innocent person is absolutely unacceptable. In the US it is used way too frequently. If used at all, it should be a once in a decade thing, not something we do several times a year. The US seems to average about 20 executions a year (in 1999, 98 people were executed) and I have a hard time believing at least one innocent person wasn't among them.

 

[King Metalia]

It's only fitting that the wicked experience greater suffering than their victims. Death would only be an escape from their punishment. So I'm obviously opposed to capital punishment.

 

[Big Brutus]

Alright, here's my take:

A certain, exclusive segment of violent criminals deserve it: murderers, rapists, and anyone who commits a child-oriented sexual offense, whether it be possession of child pornography or full-on child rape. I also think the death penalty should be applied to any person that keeps a human being as chattel or some other form of slave, though this would be a fairly rare crime in the first place.

I support the use of firing squad or nitrogen hypoxia to carry this out. Firing squad is about as close as you can get to a painless death when it comes to a highly-tested, proven method. Taking industrial accidents into account where workers were quickly and painlessly killed by nitrogen gas in confined spaces, I think that making a condemned inmate breathe pure nitrogen is the best method because, not only is it painless, but it also feels no different from breathing normally. There's literally no discomfort, it's like being knocked out by anesthetic gas for surgery. The only difference is that you die afterwards because your brain is fatally deprived of oxygen.

I do understand that there are issues with the current application of the death penalty. To that end, I believe the death penalty should be applied on an evidentiary basis, not on the basis of weighing criminal heinousness with mitigating factors. If the accused, beyond a reasonable doubt, committed the crime, then the death penalty should be mandatory. The jury's sole purpose is to determine if the accused is guilty of doing something wrong, not what punishment the accused deserves.