The Death Penalty

[Corbin Wells]

Re: The Death Penalty

people who commit violent crimes need to be punished for their evil deeds no matter how the act was committed even if it be by accident.

So if A is enraged because of B proviking A, and A gets into a fight with B, ends up killing B, but does so as an accident, A should be put to death? Shouldn't these types of cases be worthy of lesser punishments such as 15 years or more in prison with provided anger management therapy? Now we are not talking in cases that cannot be proven accidental or not, but rather cases in which the person who killed the other, comes clean the same day or whenever(within a reasonable amount of time) to the proper authorities? Should A still be put to death despite it being crystal clear of it being an accident?

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Not necessarily. Both the individual and the crime should be taken into account before the death penalty is enforced.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

The problem with that kind of subjective application of a punishment that can only be final and objective is that you have no greater authority to appeal to in order to claim that your particular list of circumstances where death is warranted is actually valid.

Even if there are crimes where

|-------------||------------|
A             BC            D

A is obviously where death is warranted, and D is where it is obviously not warranted (Say, unprovoked mass murder, and last-ditch self defense) you will have cases B and C (And things between B and C) where there isn't nearly to clear a choice. In these instances, how can you justify ending someone's life?

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

I'm afraid I do not understand that post. Can you please clarify for me?

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

I'm assuming you ask because you saw the post during the edits for formatting of the graph, before I put in the text below the graph. If the text afterwards still doesn't explain it, I have no idea how else to tell you what I'm saying.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Yes, I did see the pre-edit, sorry.

Ok, so then there needs to be a very cleasr set of what warrents the penalty and what does not. If the matter were to be seriously pondered and put into effect, it would be very extensive. Like putting together a constitutioin. Every aspect would need tto be analyzed before the end result came into effect.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

And when an exception comes up? Some circumstance that wasn't specifically accounted for in your formulation? Some extenuation that ought to mitigate things but wasn't allowed for?

You can't make an exhaustive rules system, this is why smart website and forum makers (shameless plug) use phrases like "Including but not limited to" when they set out to say exactly what can't and can't be done.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

And when an exception comes up? Some circumstance that wasn't specifically accounted for in your formulation? Some extenuation that ought to mitigate things but wasn't allowed for?

You can't make an exhaustive rules system, this is why smart website and forum makers (shameless plug) use phrases like "Including but not limited to" when they set out to say exactly what can't and can't be done.

There should be an obvious Council or other means of deciding the punisment. A jury. A congress. A council. Something.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

who is on it? what constitutes qualification to serve? who picks? what if you want to appeal their decisions?

This is really becoming a tangent. The final point about it is that no matter what system you try to develop, it MUST eventually come down to a human saying "For this, you deserve to die" with no objective basis for making that determination. Since execution is completely final, and cannot be reversed or compensated for after the fact if it turns out there was a mistake, I simply can't support a fallible, biased, opinionated human (or panel of humans) dictating terms under which someone's life must be forfiet.

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

They would be elected. Just like every other person in power. By the people for the people.

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

Yes...let me just say this again:

I simply can't support a fallible, biased, opinionated human (or panel of humans) dictating terms under which someone's life must be forfiet.

It means not one tiny thing to me whether they were elected "democratically" or not, so your statement doesn't actually address my objection at all.

[benguino]

Re: The Death Penalty

I think a person with a life sentence (w/o paroll) should be able to choose death as an alternative since a life sentence would be lonely with no hope.

Also I think for the death penalty the person should be able to choose how they want to die whether its lethal injection, electric chair, etc...

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

But what about if they are sentenced to death?

[devonin]

Re: The Death Penalty

Out of curiosity, even though this is off-topic, would you be suggesting you can pick -any- way you want to be killed? I mean, jokes about "Old age" as your choice aside, I can think of some pretty twisted ways to want to die that people probably shoudln't be allowed to pick. Are ou going to give them a checklist of three or four to choose from?

[rzr]

Re: The Death Penalty

Out of curiosity, even though this is off-topic, would you be suggesting you can pick -any- way you want to be killed? I mean, jokes about "Old age" as your choice aside, I can think of some pretty twisted ways to want to die that people probably shoudln't be allowed to pick. Are ou going to give them a checklist of three or four to choose from?

Who's this directed at, or is a general question?