Are you Pro-Capital Punishment or Anti-Capital Punishment?

Anti-Capital Punishment. I think they are just as guilty, and hypocrites. Seriously "Murder is wrong, so we're gonna kill you." It's contradictory and hypocritical.

Anti-Capital Punishment

I'm with you. I live in Texas, and I supported capital punishment for a long time, but the more I learned about it, the more I came to oppose it. In the end, several factors changed my mind:

1. By far the most compelling is this: Sometimes the legal system gets it wrong. In the last 35 years in the U.S., 130 people have been released from death row because they were exonerated by DNA evidence. These are ALL people who were found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Unfortunately, DNA evidence is not available in most cases. So, as long as the death penalty is in place, you are pretty much GUARANTEED to occasionally execute an innocent person.

Really, that should be reason enough for most people to oppose it. If you need more, read on:

2. Cost: Because of higher pre-trial expenses, longer trials, jury sequestration, extra expenses associated with prosecuting & defending a DP case, and the appeals process (which is necessary - see reason #1), it costs taxpayers MUCH more to execute prisoners than to imprison them for life. This disparity becomes even greater when you consider the time value of money – most of the costs of capital punishment are up-front, occurring before and during the trial itself, whereas most of the costs of life imprisonment are spread over the term of incarceration (usually 30-40 years).

3. The deterrent effect is questionable at best. Violent crime rates are actually HIGHER in death penalty jurisdictions. This may seem counterintuitive, and there are many theories about why this is (Ted Bundy saw it as a challenge, so he chose Florida – the most active execution state at the time – to carry out his final murder spree). It is probably due, at least in part, to the high cost (see #2), which drains resources from police departments, drug treatment programs, education, and other government services that help prevent crime. Personally, I think it also has to do with the hypocrisy of taking a stand against murder…by killing people. The government fosters a culture of violence by saying, ‘do as I say, not as I do.’

4. It is inconsistently and arbitrarily applied. Factors that should be irrelevant (geography, race of the victim, poor representation, etc.) are all too often the determining factors in whether someone gets death versus life in prison.

5. There’s also an argument to be made that death is too good for the worst criminals. Let them wake up and go to bed every day of their lives in a prison cell, and think about the freedom they DON’T have, until they rot of old age. When Ted Bundy was finally arrested in 1978, he told the police officer, “I wish you had killed me.” Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (the architect of the 9/11 attacks) would love nothing better than to be put to death. In his words, "I have been looking to be a martyr [for a] long time."

6. Most governments are supposed to be secular, but for those who invoke Christian law in this debate, you can find arguments both for AND against the death penalty in the Bible. The New Testament (starring Jesus) is primarily ANTI-death penalty. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus praises mercy (Matthew 5:7) and rejects “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38-39). James 4:12 says that GOD is the only one who can take a life in the name of justice. In John 8:7, Jesus himself says, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

I wouldn't call it contradictory...

Sure, technically C.P is murder; but should the case be the legal killing of a murderer, that murderer would have known all along that committing the crime would result in turn, in his own death.

His victim would have had no such choice. In such a situation, a killer who present-mindedly kills does so determining his own fate.

BUT. I'm anti.

There are ALWAYS exceptions to which people would like to exempt a certain criminal.

And there's always false conviction. I think it's too big a decision to put upon other people, and too big a legal right for people to have.

Pro-Capital Punishment.

100% Anti Capital Punishment

It's totally contradictory. I can't believe people still think like this today. What alarms me the most is some people who are Pro, then say other cultures are barabaric.

Who gives someone the right to take someone elses life? And if someone does, their actions will receive the correct consequences. But is not for any other person to do, without being as cowardice, and barbaric, as the one who killed in the first place.

To quote Ghandi: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

The gut part of me say I support it. How ofter do we hear about a rape of a murder and think that someone should take that guys knees from him.

But when we really think about it, what purpose does it serve, will it make the family of the raped or murders feel any better, will it stop it from happening again, of course not.

All it does is create more pain and hate.

im anti-capital punishment.

everyone deserves a second chance, and they have bloodhsed on their hands that they have to deal with for their whole lives, and that worse than death

its hypocrytical and wrong. they made a mistake, and prison is making the same killing them

how can anyone be pro suicide?? someone giving up and dying and leaving behind people who love them? these people have problems, and death should NOT be an option

Strongly anti-, because not only can I not reconcile the contradiction, I can't see any good reason: It costs *more* than life imprisonment; it doesn't deter crime; studies show it doesn't make the families of the victims feel better; and it makes victims out of the family of the criminal, whether or not they've done anything wrong.

I am definitely for murdering all murderers and rapists. According to God a rapist is as bad as someone who lies in wait to kill someone. I believe string em up, get rid of em.