Are You in Favour of the Death Penalty/Capital Punishment?

[lonewolfEU]

We find out a bit about the way we look at things and with these polls we can see if we are in the majority or minority [crap I hate that word] with our own ideas on the said subject.
Pros & Cons are that a person can be innocent .......thats all I can think off for the cons side . The pros have many , all depending on the type of crime.
That brings me to a question I have , and that is " How do we decide? " A guy kills a guy in a bar room brawl he should get some years but not death BUT a guy like Cliford Olsen who raped / killed / sodomized over 10 children and we pay over a $100.000 a year for his special cecure cell because other pc inmates wanted to kill him. Nowdays he kicks back and puts on a porn dvd and has some snacks and lives a good life. Not a worry in the world. Everything he wants we give him, except more 10 year old victims. Now if one of those kids was your son or daughter you cant tell me you would not want to see him fry , to murder him?
So what do you think on this subject?

[Scáthach]

i know its somewhat irrelevant but a serial killer is only technically classed as such if he has killed 3 or more.

anyway,i think the death penalty is warranted and a good thing sometimes,in really sadistic rapes and murders and paedophaelia etc.
the only time i would wonder about it is when the offender is under 20 and could perhaps be ''reformed'' though in the words of Carl Panzram ; ''The only way to reform people is to kill them''

you made a great point though and that is that we shouldnt have to waste our money on keeping people like richard ramirez etc alive so in many cases i would advocate the d.p

[Beef_Noodle]

I think that for a country to have something as drastic as the death penalty it needs a broad societal justification for it and there simply isn't one. The death penalty doesn't reduce the crime rate, it doesn't make people think twice about pre planning murders, it just fulfills a primal urge for retribution that in the end accomplishes nothing.

[Scáthach]

i dont think may people really feel it will curb violent crime (and america has shown that it doesnt and wont) but people (most ppl anyway!) do not want to spend their taxes paying to keep paedophiles,serial killers,rapists and murderers etc alive for the rest of their lives,it may seem a shallow reason and certainly money should not figure so much but the fact is it does.

people such as these are not productive or worthwhile.they have also shown a contemptuos diregard for the lives of others,i think thats reason enough to kill them.

[Katinkatze]

Its really isnt easy deciding wether Death Penalty is the right choice or not, obv if some one has been found guilty for murder/ rape etc... its more that obvious that they ought to be punished, but the problems start to arise when there is a slight chance that the accuse IS or is NOT guilty... many in the past have been innocent and still got sentenced to death, but also its a very big burden for us civilians to have to pay taxes to keep these criminals in jail... I'd say If there is good proof that the criminal is found guilty, then yes i wouldnt think twice about letting him have death penalty...

Incidentally last night I read a story about something of this sort... it was about four witnesses who saw a man come out of a residence, and this man had just killed a woman who lived in the residence. they had seen this man trow the weapon in the bushes round the corner and it was found that there were no finger prints because the murderer was wearing gloves...
In court all four witnesses recognised the man and swore it was him who killed the woman and was the man they saw trowing the weapon away... thus this would have been excellent reason to convict him... BUT there was one problem... he had an identical twin brother... thats were the problem had risen... how could have the witnesses been sure wether it was the man who was in court being accused of murder or was it his twin brother who had committed the murder? this way they couldnt pass on a verdict the case had to be dropped and thus a murderer was out and about, and the witnesses im very sure must not feel safe anywere they go for fear of this man coming and killing them too...
Maybe this was bit out of context but this could very easily happen, and sometimes death penalty could be abit of a drastic measure...

[Scáthach]

today it is more difficult to convict an innocent due to forensics but the problem that remains is corrupt police,judges etc could do so,as was seen in the guildford four's case people sometimes make a scapegoat out of others for their own means.

[Oberst Jager]

If there is proof, fry his ass. But I am not for them sitting in prison for 20 years before they get fried...

[Sigrun Christianson]

I cannot think of a crime for which I would vote for the death penalty. It is not for humanitarian reasons, but purely selfish ones: I just can't imagine having his premeditated death darkening my soul - for any reason.

Yours,
Sigrun

[Scáthach]

i am generally pro death penalty for severe crimes such as for a serial killer,a repeat rapist/child molestor,severe animal cruelty etc.im not completely pro dp either,im still a little unsure but in general i lean more to the pro side.
i know it rarely acts as a deterrent but i simply believe,callous as it may sound,that if you do such a crime youve given up your right to life and i dont think life imprisonment is severe enough and of course,theres always the possibility of the criminal being freed and the fact that good citizens have to pay for their stay in jail.

[Loki]

I have not yet placed my vote in this poll. This is because I am not yet convinced that I (or any other human being for that matter) should have power over life and death.

Surely those crimes mentioned are detestable. But should perpetrators thereof be given any corporal punishment? I have mixed feelings at the moment.

People have been taking the lives of others since history began. Death as penalty is embedded in almost every religious book we have. But this does not necessarily make it morally acceptable. Many nowadays argue that books like the Bible contain immorality.

Could the death penalty be linked to the question of whether we are civilized or not?