And being dead is forever, so if your goal is remove someone from society then killing them isn't exactly a terribly inefficient way to do so unless you plan on letting them back in.


The living expenses of the dead are quite reasonable though, even with inflation.



I see the problem. You're comparing the Texas shitty-terrible-monstrous death penalty machine to the concept of the death penalty. This is like walking around Dallas and concluding that everyone in a cowboy hat is a complete asshole. Just because Texas is a terrible backwards place for...well, a lot of things... doesn't mean the concept itself is broken. It means the government of Texas is systematically terrible in almost every possible evaluation of a place... And I say that as someone who's from Alabama and grew up in Florida. Things are tough all over for justice in the USA, but I'd argue that in Texas it's been repealed by popular vote.

I say that not as a "fan" of the death penalty. I do believe it's misapplied and over applied even outside of Texas. But I think it serves as useful mechanism when/if it were applied more responsibly. It's not enough that someone is criminal, nor a dastardly criminal. It should reserved by measure of "this person will murder again by a conclusion of peers, regardless of any rehabilitation or length of incarceration." It shouldn't be a punishment, a reward for public outrage or moral offense, but solely something meted out upon people who can't be trusted or repaired under any circumstances.

(i do have to agree with that. however, good luck getting this country to part with its weaponry. they believe that more of the exact same problem is the solution to the problem.)

but what exactly is supposed to be the almighty force that stands behind words on paper that assumedly prevents anything? a psychopath doesnt care about what we say they can or cant do. theyll do it whether we tell them to or not.
and most people who dont kill, wouldnt kill given the opportunity either. they dont need laws to tell them not to kill; they have a natural inclination toward non-violence. theres no actual, physical force behind words on paper that have any influence over a situation wherein the murderer is devoted to the act of murdering. a person gives those words validation/credibility, which is where the influence over their behavior comes from, but they could just as easily not validate them.

the problem isnt with the people who can be controlled. the real problem is with the people who cant be dissuaded, and a law pertaining to whats acceptable/not acceptable treatment of those people, is generally designed to set a wide-spread societal expectation of the reprocussions of committing that specific act.

laws pertaining to consequence also make it easier for the people to identify unequal treatment between criminals (for example, if there were no laws at all, and 2 people stole some bread, and one was killed for it and the other was locked away for a couple of months, it could spark social controversy, which couldve easily been averted through a widely applicable law pertaining to the consequences of stealing).
people who cant be controlled by fear or by force will always exist. laws are most useful in that respect, as they set an official form of socially approved (by the majority, anyway) treatment of said people after the fact.

@Mistermook: ditto.

May I add to this debate, seeing it's more fun, I think the feminine name of Ariel may have been introduced to us before the Little Mermaid. I'm talking the classic anti-establishment movie Footloose. The girl's name was Ariel. But, I'm sure someone can find another feminine version before then!

Many common female names of today come from masculine origins or last names: Ashley, Courtney, Madison, Taylor, Mackenzie, Brooke etc. Watch out guys named Jordan, Ashton, Elisha, Lane, out there. You're names will one day seem rather girly too!

Exactly. I don't know why people seem to think that the penal code (which is the specific part of the law we're talking about) will deter crime. The biggest deterrent to crime in general, but especially to violent crime, is people having a conscience and being properly socialized. Those who commit in particular violent crimes usually lack one or the other or both. Because of that lack, they disregard the law even when they know what the penalties are, even when the penalties are terrible. The penal code simply defines that which is to be considered unacceptable by law and then lays out ranges of penalties for each offense, which judges then have latitude to choose from as they see fit, according to the circumstances of the case. The ranges are somewhat narrow, so that a judge can't give someone a harsh penalty for a relatively minor offense just because the judge is in a bad mood.

Which isn't to say that penalties don't deter crime. But really, they're a deterrent only to people who are properly socialized and who possess a functioning conscience because such people will tend to fear and to try to avoid punishment. Thing is, those aren't the people who are apt to commit unconscionable crimes in the first place. Deranged people, whether they're permanently or only temporarily deranged, aren't thinking about such things when they're contemplating or committing their crimes. Because they're unbalanced and deranged, you see. Either that, or in the case of sociopaths they've thought about the penalties and they scoff at them.

IMO, what to do with offenders after they commit their crime depends on a whole lot of different factors. It takes a lot for me to say, "That person should be done away with, like a rabid dog, because we can't fix them and we want zero possibility of them being introduced to society again." Yes, locking them away for life can permanently remove them from society, too. But things can happen that would still allow that person to be freed. They can escape, for one. Or they could kill someone in the prison with them, be it a fellow inmate or a person who works at the prison, which doesn't free them but it does mean that society isn't fully insulated from them. Or, the law could free them. For instance, California flip-flopped on the death penalty in the 70s before flip-flopping back a few years later. Because of the flip-flop, Charles Manson's death sentence was automatically commuted to a life sentence, and he's been up for parole numerous times since then. It's always been denied...but someday it might be approved, and I'm not comfortable with the notion of people like him being freed.

So, as I've said, I do favor a limited and very specifically-applied death penalty. (And yes, is isn't always applied that way, I know. Texas for one is kooky that way.) I also favor such sentences to be carried out swiftly, so that people DON'T sit on Death Row for 30 years, especially now that we have more powerful tools at our disposal, such as DNA evidence, which tend to make cases a little more black-and-white and a little less likely to be racially-biased, etc. And, IMO, Castro's case doesn't meet the (or maybe just my) parameters for the death penalty, and although it technically CAN apply, due to Ohio law, I don't think it really should, mostly because that would set a precedent that I don't like.

As for the name Ariel: I've known a few Ariels in my time, all male. A couple of them were Latinos of Puerto Rican descent. One was Cuban. One was Spanish. I'm pretty sure it's a fairly common male Spanish/Latin name. Just like Angel, for that matter. Both have been appropriated and deemed feminine by non-Spanish/Latin people, for whatever reason, probably because they "sound pretty." I imagine the actual feminine version of the name would be something like Ariella, much like Angela is the feminine of Angel.

The Death Penalty should be reserved for punishment for Murder of the First Degree where the murderer has no chance of rehabilitation. Anything less is "inhumane." The punishment should be carried out quickly (so as to prevent the pain and suffering from sitting on Death Row) and mostly painlessly.


--Ocram

DNA evidence is still nowhere near infallible though. I can certainly imagine that one day, X years in the future, people will be saying "I can't believe they used to sentence people (to death) based on DNA evidence! Didn't they realise how unreliable it could be! Thank goodness we now have [insert new form of evidence used in criminal trials in the future], now we can be sure that we're punishing the right people!" And then X years from then people will be saying the same thing about the evidence that they relied on in court.....

Contamination of DNA evidence can certainly lead to incorrect test results, which can lead to innocent people being found guilty. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, and I don't know how frequently contamination occurs or how frequently contamination leads to the wrong person/people being found guilty of a crime, but I found this article quite an interesting read, and am keen to read more on the topic.



Don't prisoners generally spend a long time on Death Row because of the lengthy appeals process, which sometimes results in prisoners being removed from Death Row? Personally, if I'd been sentenced to death I wouldn't want them to rush it - I'd want to be able to appeal! But then, I really can't see me ever committing a crime that would make me end up on Death Row, so if I was I'd be innocent and I wouldn't "deserve" (leaving aside the question of whether anyone deserves it) to be put to death. Just like some of the prisoners on Death Row, in fact. You know, like the innocent ones, or the ones who have actually committed lesser crimes?

Well, of course it isn't. Nothing is. But if there's a lot of evidence besides DNA, plus DNA, plus witnesses, plus a confession...I'm going to say it's a pretty safe bet that that person is actually guilty. We keep adding technology that makes convictions more certain, not less. I don't see that changing.

Overall, I think innocent people have been put to death over the years, yes. But I don't believe that this is a reason to never use the death penalty at all, ever. I think it means that it should be a sentence that should be handed out very cautiously...but I'm perfectly happy that Ted Bundy -- who once boastfully said that for every woman he was convicted of raping/torturing/murdering, there were a dozen more that no one knows about at all -- is no longer on this planet. The system has flaws that need to be fixed and some states in the US are a little death-penalty-happy, yes. But in certain very specific cases...I think we're better off without certain people on this planet. Even if you lock them away forever, they're not isolated enough. People still have to see to their needs, after all, and those people are in danger, however remote. As are other prisoners.

And yes, people are on Death Row for a long time so that they can appeal. That becomes their way of life, basically. Often, they are successful and have their sentences commuted, but not all the time. And many die of natural causes before they are actually executed. I think it's fairly safe to say, given the appeals process, etc., that the vast majority of those who are eventually executed are actually guilty. If there's any doubt, the appeals process weeds them out, and usually their sentences are commuted. That's what the appeals process is there for. I just think there should be more of a set time limit on the process, is all.

Now, whether everyone on Death Row "deserves" their sentence is another matter entirely. Sometimes I think the sentence is appropriate, sometimes I think it isn't. It depends on the case. I'm not a "hang 'em!" person at all, really. I just think that, as a last resort, we (as in, society) should retain the option to get rid of people who have proven themselves unrepentant dangers to society in general (Not just to one or a small number of specific people, mind you) without that person being a drain on society that the taxpayers are obligated to support for the rest of their life.

I don't think the state should have the power to execute people - first and foremost because the police, who carry out investigations and arrests, are known to be incompetent and/ or corrupt liars. And the fact that inmates on death row have the appeals process is not very comforting - many of the people later exonerated with the help of the various Innocence Projects had exhausted their appeals and yet were still on death row.
You can say that the death penalty should only be used in the most egregious cases, the Ted Bundys, but it doesn't work like that - it's applied haphazardly and inconsistently. Edit: And it's barbaric.

I don't have as much faith as you do in witnesses and confessions. Perhaps I watch too much Dateline, but shows like it, in addition to articles I read in the Crime section of the news, have me convinced that eyewitness accounts are terribly unreliable and police are often able to coerce false confessions from innocent people.

I'm not against the idea of the death penalty or the eradication of horrible people from the face of the planet, but I do think one innocent person wrongly convicted and executed is one too many. It may be true that the vast majority of death row inmates legitimately deserve it and the number of innocent people wrongly executed is statistically small. However, what if that innocent person who is wrongly executed is your son, father, sister, or someone you care about? Or what if someday, that person sitting on death row is YOU? I can't even imagine the frustration and nightmare of being innocent on death row, screaming at the top of your lungs, "I AM INNOCENT!", yet your pleas fall on deaf ears.

I don't know. Most of the time, I think I'm on the fence. I'd be okay with the death penalty for the worst crimes if it were possible to know without a doubt that person committed the crime, but in a great deal of cases where death is on the table, there's no real way to know. Death should definitely not even be an option on cases built entirely on circumstantial evidence.

If you were trying to be funny, I should direct you to the Dark Humor Corner in Derpy Mc WTF. If you were serious, there are so many things wrong with that.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/04/justi...eath/index.html

Welp. I guess it's all moot now...

Looks liek he's dead now - So he got the death penalty in a way.

I only realise now how darn creepy I sounded. 0_0 Yeah, the Derpy McWTF corner is where I usually lurk.

This is a perfect moment for a bad poker face.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7ZlPzSzJF..._poker_face.jpg