What are your thoughts on the death penalty?

eoferrall

celticcrash wrote: »

Some people read things in the paper, come on here and give there view.
Reading about something on the paper and living it are different realities.
When you know people for real and see what they go through for real, after a murder being commited on a family member by a serial killer or their kid who just died of an overdose.
There is no logic to that.
There is no reason to that.
Are you going to ask the parents to intellectualise that.
Lets do the Irish thing and talk about it while our kids die.
Lets sit on the fence and hide behind false morals while our kids die.
Lets not take action.
Lets read it in the paper and tut tut to ourselves, and than flip over to
The sports page.

And how would the murder of the murderer/drug dealer whatever make the family feel better?

sam34

moved from tgc to ah as it's more a general discussion than a male-specific one

Hangballlouie

I think it's gas!

celticcrash

Yes I know parents personally who would love to see these murders and death pedalers face the death penalty so as not to see more kids die and
have their familys wrecked and go through what they have to go through.
And the furstrating thing is, if they let their feelings go public they know that another family member could be next and thats a reality.

diddley

After recently reading about this case in the UK I decided that the death penalty is, in some cases, justified.

Unfortunately none of them got it though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Suzanne_Capper

I just don't think people like that appreciate/deserve life since they're capable of such 'inhumanity'.

py2006

Folks, you can't kill evil.....with evil!

Biggins

Emotionally at times I would like to see it.
However thinking rationally, no, I would have to reject it.

partyatmygaff

py2006 wrote: »

Folks, you can't kill evil.....with evil!

Killing isn't always necessarily evil.

If there's a mass murderer in the process of murdering innocent people in plain sight, it'd be quite alright to kill them to prevent further loss of innocent life.


Killing them post facto when the imminent danger has passed just seems barbaric however.

celticcrash

The closest some people come to murder or death on here is csi
or diehard.

Kevin Duffy

looky loo wrote: »

Tell that to the parents of the kids killed in Oslo, Norway. I hope he gets the death penalty, or better yet, send him out in the woods and have hunters track him with guns, on an island, the same way he treated those poor people.

I may have missed it, but I don't recall those families calling for the death penalty. There have been media claims that "it has triggered calls", but to my knowledge it hasn't been the families making the calls.
Are you electing yourself spokesperson for those families? Or just projecting your own views onto them to use them as fuel for your argument? One is arrogant, one is shameful.

On a general note; it doesn't work, it's hypocritical, it leads to a societal view of violence as righteous, it leaves no marigin for error such as a system opertated by humans needs, it doesn't bring back victims or offer restorative justice. It's only point is to fill the need for vengence and that's a gap in your soul you never fill if you let it open.

Tipsy McSwagger

I think convicted murderers should have to go on a gameshow like The Running Man. Last man standing wins a trip to Moneygall.

0O7

its some mothers son... (or daughter) i dont believe in it, if somebody is killed they "get away" with the suffering and prison etc.... if somebody did something bad enough that they derserve to die, i think lock them up and throw away the key...

if they are put to death, they escape the long days of sitting in a room staring at a wall, and its their family that will be punished...

Einhard

It's entirely wrong, in all circumstances, and yes, before someone brings it up, if someone murdered my family I'd think the same way. And, seeing as it was removed from the Constitution through referendum in 2001, I'm in the majority on this! Go do-gooders, go!!:p

Einhard

Zascar wrote: »

Sorry I'm going to go on the other side of the fence here. If someone is quite clearly guilty and beyond any reasonable chance of rehabilitation - and has proved they are absolutely unsafe to live in our society, or is definitely going to spend the rest of their lives behind bars anyway, we should not have to foot the bill of 60+ per year to keep them locked up for 50+ years. Watching all those America's hardest prisons programs where there are complete nutcases who consider themselves 'Penitentiary Orientated' and have absolutely zero consideration for any laws or other people - the death penalty is ok in my opinion. There is not enough incentive not to do really bad things over and over again. If there was, maybe they would think twice.

So it's not so much a moral issue for you, as a financial one? They cost us money, so kill them?

Liam Byrne

py2006 wrote: »

If you consider murder to be wrong then you must consider murder of somebody as punishment wrong!

No.

If someone rewrites the rules and gives the law and decency the two fingers they've made their choice.

Bring it back, and bring back flogging for all the "known to Gardai" toerags.

7sr2z3fely84g5

i think we would be kicked out of the EU if was introduced,interesting case in Ireland was man convicted in 1985 of cop murder,sentence of death was handed down,but it was then commuted to 40 years by the president at the time on advice of the attorney general.

The death penalty has been used for political gains in the states,example of bush jr having a "zero tolerance" approach when was governor of texas,it hasn't done much to deter crime.

US system is bit odd,your faith lies in geography,so depending on state your trial is in,you could get life or death penalty.

Would rather be in favour of uk system of a tariff system or whole life sentence along with the parole board having final say,not the irish system of the justice minister who has final say on parole boards finding who could be overruled by the next elected justice minister.

l.m

The death penalty is hypocritical and wrong.

Einhard

looky loo wrote: »

Tell that to the parents of the kids killed in Oslo, Norway. I hope he gets the death penalty, or better yet, send him out in the woods and have hunters track him with guns, on an island, the same way he treated those poor people.

Tell that to the parents? How do you know the parents want the death penalty?

Even if they do, there's a reason we have the state, rather than the families of the victims, prosecute criminal trials.

celticcrash wrote: »

Some people read things in the paper, come on here and give there view.
Reading about something on the paper and living it are different realities.
When you know people for real and see what they go through for real, after a murder being commited on a family member by a serial killer or their kid who just died of an overdose.
There is no logic to that.
There is no reason to that.
Are you going to ask the parents to intellectualise that.

The opposite is also true though, in that people automatically assume that, because one has suffered a terrible loss through crime, one must be pro-capital punishment. Indeed, such sentiment is evident in this thread. When Sara Payne was abducted, likely sexually assaulted, and murdered, the Sun and other tabloids ran campaigns demanding the re-introduction of the death penalty, and much of the public were enraged that there was no such punishment for the perpetrator of such a heinous crime. This was all done on behalf of the parents. We were entreated to think of Sara's parents, who would only see justice when their child's murderer was put to death.

Except...the parents didn't want the death penalty, and indeed were abhorred by the suggestion. The tabloids, and the mob all jumped on a bandwagon they themselves had established, and used the tragedy to push their own agenda. The case showed the danger of assuming that people who have been victims automatically wish for the death penalty.

Lets do the Irish thing and talk about it while our kids die.
Lets sit on the fence and hide behind false morals while our kids die.
Lets not take action.
Lets read it in the paper and tut tut to ourselves, and than flip over to
The sports page.

The choice isn't between the death penalty and no penalty, as you are trying to make out. I'm all for longer sentences, and think that, more often than not, life should mean life, but the idea of the state putting people to death leaves me cold.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

No.

If someone rewrites the rules and gives the law and decency the two fingers they've made their choice.

Bring it back, and bring back flogging for all the "known to Gardai" toerags.

Liam, you really seem to have lurched to the Right over the past few months. I always thought your posts sensible and reasoned, and now you're advocating that we flog people?

Sulmac

For those who agree with the death penalty because "it's cheaper than locking them up for life":

To execute or not: A question of cost?
States discover it's cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them

After decades of moral arguments reaching biblical proportions, after long, twisted journeys to the nation's highest court and back, the death penalty may be abandoned by several states for a reason having nothing to do with right or wrong:

Money.

Turns out, it is cheaper to imprison killers for life than to execute them, according to a series of recent surveys. Tens of millions of dollars cheaper, politicians are learning, during a tumbling recession when nearly every state faces job cuts and massive deficits.

So an increasing number of them are considering abolishing capital punishment in favor of life imprisonment, not on principle but out of financial necessity.

"It's 10 times more expensive to kill them than to keep them alive," though most Americans believe the opposite, said Donald McCartin, a former California jurist known as "The Hanging Judge of Orange County" for sending nine men to death row.

Deep into retirement, he lost his faith in an eye for an eye and now speaks against it. What changed a mind so set on the ultimate punishment?

'Waste of time and money'
California's legendarily slow appeals system, which produces an average wait of nearly 20 years from conviction to fatal injection — the longest in the nation. Of the nine convicted killers McCartin sent to death row, only one has died. Not by execution, but from a heart attack in custody.

"Every one of my cases is bogged up in the appellate system," said McCartin, who retired in 1993 after 15 years on the bench.

"It's a waste of time and money," said the 82-year-old, self-described right-wing Republican whose sonorous voice still commands attention. "The only thing it does is prolong the agony of the victims' families."

In 2007, time and money were the reasons New Jersey became the first state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine commuted the executions of 10 men to life imprisonment without parole. Legal costs were too great and produced no result, lawmakers said. After spending an estimated $4.2 million for each death sentence, the state had executed no one since 1963. Also, eliminating capital punishment eliminated the risk of executing an innocent person.

Out of 36 remaining states with the death penalty, at least eight have considered legislation this year to end it — Maryland, Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, New Hampshire, Washington and Kansas — an uncommon marriage between eastern liberals and western conservatives, built on economic hardship.

"This is the first time in which cost has been the prevalent issue in discussing the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a data clearinghouse that favors abolition of capital punishment.

DNA evidence
The most recent arguments against it centered on the ever-increasing number of convicts cleared by DNA evidence.

Some of the worst cases occurred in Illinois. In 2000, then-Gov. George H. Ryan placed a moratorium on executions after 13 people had been exonerated from death row for reasons including genetic testing and recanted testimony.

Ryan declared the system "so fraught with error that it has come close to the ultimate nightmare, the state's taking of innocent life."

He commuted the sentences of all 167 death row convicts, most to life imprisonment without parole. His moratorium is still in effect.

Across the country, the number of prisoners exonerated and released from death row is more than 130, with thousands of appeals clogging the courts.

Death penalty trials are more expensive for several reasons: They often require extra lawyers; there are strict experience requirements for attorneys, leading to lengthy appellate waits while capable counsel is sought for the accused; security costs are higher, as well as costs for processing evidence — DNA testing, for example, is far more expensive than simple blood analyses.

After sentencing, prices continue to rise. It costs more to house death row inmates, who are held in segregated sections, in individual cells, with guards delivering everything from daily meals to toilet paper.

In California, home to the nation's biggest death row population at 667, it costs an extra $90,000 per inmate to imprison someone sentenced to death — an additional expense that totals more than $63.3 million annually, according to a 2008 study by the state's Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

The panel, which agreed with California Chief Justice Ronald M. George that the state's death penalty system was "dysfunctional," blamed exorbitant costs on delays in finding qualified public defenders, a severe backlog in appellate reviews, and a high rate of cases being overturned on constitutional grounds.

"Failures in the administration of California's death penalty law create cynicism and disrespect for the rule of law," concluded the 117-page report.

Some prominent Californians have asked Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to get rid of executions. Especially now, as service cuts and tax increases are pegged to fill a $42 billion budget hole. But it appears that the Republican governor will not abandon capital punishment anytime soon.

Meanwhile, the nationwide number of death sentences handed down has declined over the past decade, from 284 in 1999 to 111 in 2008. Reasons differ significantly, depending on who's providing them: Pro-death penalty activists say it's because crime rates have declined and execution is a strong deterrent; abolitionists say it's because jurors and judges are reluctant to risk taking a life when future scientific tests could prove the accused not guilty.

Executions, too, are dropping. There were 98 in 1999; 37 in 2008.

Still, the costs of capital punishment weigh heavily on legislators facing Solomon-like choices in these dismal economic times.

In Kansas, Republican state Sen. Caroline McGinn is pushing a bill that would repeal the death penalty effective July 1. Kansas, which voted to suspend tax refunds, faces a budget deficit of nearly $200 million. McGinn urged fellow legislators "to think outside the box" for ways to save money. According to a state survey, capital cases were 70 percent more expensive than comparable non-death penalty cases.

In New Mexico, Gov. Bill Richardson recently said his longtime support of capital punishment was wavering — and belt-tightening was one the reasons.
As the state tries to plug a $450 million budget shortfall with cuts to schools and environmental agencies, a bill to end executions has already passed the House as a cost-saving measure. The state supreme court has ruled that more money must be given for public defenders in death penalty cases, but legislators have yet to act.

In Maryland, a 2008 Urban Institute study said taxpayers forked out at least $37.2 million for each of five executions since the death penalty was re-enacted in 1978. The survey, which examined 162 capital cases, found that simply seeking the death penalty added $186 million to prosecution costs.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, who disdains the death penalty on moral and financial grounds, is pushing a bill to repeal it.

'Calculate the cost'
There are many, of course, who refuse to change their minds, believing execution is the ultimate wage of the ultimate sin. They also say that death penalty cases don't have to be so expensive.

Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, a pro-capital-punishment group, said, "Having an effective appeals process might very well cost less."

States "calculate the cost as if these people are going to spend their whole lives on death row. We should be revamping the appeals process so that these cases move more quickly," Scheidegger said.

But court systems and their costs vary greatly among states, as does the time it takes to exhaust appeals. It's doubtful that change could come quickly enough to generate savings during this roiling recession.

"It's all about money," said McCartin, the former California judge. "The reasons I changed my mind were between that and how the victims' families just get raped during appeals."

But if convicted killers get life imprisonment instead of death, is that letting them off easy?

Not a chance, says 52-year-old Gordon "Randy" Steidl. He lived on death row and then in the general prison population, after his sentence was commuted to life. He preferred his former accommodations.

Steidl was released in 2004 after being exonerated of the 1986 stabbing deaths of a newlywed couple in Paris, Ill. He had an alibi for the night of the murders, corroborated by others. But he was convicted on eyewitness testimony provided by the town drunk and the town drug addict. Both later recanted.

The state of Illinois spent $3.5 million trying to execute him, "only to end up giving me a life sentence," Steidl said. "And then 5 1/2 years after that, I was exonerated."

He spent 12 years in a tiny cell on death row. Then he was thrown into "gen pop," with its snarling mass of an open cellblock, where the prospect of being stabbed, raped or worse loomed constantly, alongside deafening noise and psychotic cell mates.

"If you really want to kill someone, give them life without parole," Steidl said in an even voice. He speaks of his troubled past as if it was trapped under glass or locked behind bars — visible but no longer able to torture him.

"It's worse than dying."

msnbc.com

I'm sure it's much cheaper in countries like China, but they're hardly a model of governance and justice to aspire to.

Liam Byrne

Liam, you really seem to have lurched to the Right over the past few months. I always thought your posts sensible and reasoned, and now you're advocating that we flog people?

I'd always consider myself centre; give everyone equal rights BUT base it on their actions.

If they show that they don't want to be a part of a fair and decent society, what option is there?

If there was an option for deportation I'd forego the above, because all I want is to allow decent people to live without threats and grief caused by scum.

7sr2z3fely84g5

China executes tax dodgers,probably explains reason why there's a reluctance to introduce it here :pac:

Shane L

What is more hilarious and hypocritical is the fact that America sees itself largely as a Christian Nation :rolleyes: Thou shall not kill and all that jazz ...... Anyway I don't agree with the death penalty.

coconut5

What about the person who administers the lethal injection or whatever it is they do now? What sort of person could do this for their job? Should they not also be looked at?

I mean, how can you say that murder is wrong and these people should be punished by death, and not think about the fact that someone else has to end their life for them?

mikemac

Iker Pitiful Advisor wrote: »

The death penalty has been used for political gains in the states,example of bush jr having a "zero tolerance" approach when was governor of texas,it hasn't done much to deter crime.

Clinton did much the same in 1992 as Governor of Arkansas with Ricky Ray Rector who was retarded.

It's dangerous when politicians get involved during elections and try to score points

py2006

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Killing isn't always necessarily evil.

If there's a mass murderer in the process of murdering innocent people in plain sight, it'd be quite alright to kill them to prevent further loss of innocent life.


Killing them post facto when the imminent danger has passed just seems barbaric however.

I was being profound and deep! Your only role here is to press the 'like' button!

Craebear

1/3 people voting in favour of it.

lol morons.

bnt

southsiderosie wrote: »

Numerous states in the US have the death penalty, and the violent crime rates there are much higher than most European countries - which not only do not allow the death penalty, but generally have more lenient sentencing guidelines. So I'm not convinced that there is any relationship between the severity of punishment and crime rates.

Thing is: in the USA, "death penalty" does not automatically translate to execution. Far more people end up on "death row" than are executed: the numbers. For example: in Texas, there were 18 executions in 2008 and 24 executions in 2009 ... and there are 322 people on "death row".

So it's hardly surprising that people are saying "the death penalty is not a deterrent", if they base that supposition on the way it's done in the USA. A better example might be a country like Singapore, where the appeals process is a one-shot deal, not repeated again and again as long as there's money for lawyers.

Note that I'm not saying I support the death penalty today: I'm saying that if you're going to use the "deterrent" argument either way, the USA is a bad example of how a death penalty works (or not).

Kirby

Craebear wrote: »

1/3 people voting in favour of it.

lol morons.

To be fair, with a name like "Carebear" it's no surprise that you voted no.

In all seriousness however, I think the death penalty is worth considering.

Despite what some misinformed people in the thread have claimed, there are cases where you can be 100% of somebodies guilt. Taking the Oslo shootings for example because it is fresh in peoples mind.......... he can be identified by the survivors and other eye-witnesses, he was caught on tape doing it, he admitted his guilt and explained why he did it, he had a manifesto and plan, etc. etc. There is no preponderance of evidence or reasonable doubt. There is no 99% sure. This is not Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Assault rifle. He's guilty. End of.

There are several crimes such as this. So the argument of being against the death penalty due to the risk of executing an innocent man is poor one.

Personally, I would be for it in the most heinous of cases. Serial killers, multiple murderers, repeat child abusers....the type of people who are disturbed and have no chance of rehabilitation and would hurt more people as soon as they get the chance don't deserve to be given the chance.

The_Thing

I'd love to see it introduced here to be honest. Death by stoning would be my prefered methodology.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

The_Thing wrote: »

I'd love to see it introduced here to be honest. Death by stoning would be my prefered methodology.

Hwo would you handle the economic aspects of leaving the EU?