Death Penalty, for or against?

If all the pro-death penalty campaigners volunteer to die first at the hands of the executioner I'd be all for the death penalty - in their eyes the death penalty is a fine thing as long as someone else gets it.

We need to understand why people commit these crimes and learn from it.

Against. 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:

- Mistakes happen. Since 1973 in the U.S., 139 people have been released from death row because they were exonerated by DNA and other new evidence (DNA is not available in most homicide cases). These are ALL people who were found guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt." A life sentence is reversible. A death sentence is not.

- Because of the legal apparatus designed to minimize wrongful executions, it costs taxpayers MUCH more to execute someone than to imprison them for life.

- It is not a deterrent - violent crime rates are consistently HIGHER in death penalty jurisdictions.

- It is inconsistently and arbitrarily applied.

- It fosters a culture of violence by asserting that killing is an acceptable solution to a problem.

- Many people argue “an eye for an eye,” but those who claim to be Christian should already know that Jesus HIMSELF was against it (see Matthew 5:7 & 5:38-39, James 4:12, Romans 12:17-21, and John 8:7).

- Life without parole (LWOP) is on the books in most states now (all except Alaska), and it means what it says. People who get this sentence are taken off the streets. For good.

- Whether you’re a hardened criminal or a government representing the people, killing another human being is wrong. Period. “He did it first” is not a valid excuse.

I’m against the death penalty but not out of sympathy for criminals. The death penalty isn’t an effective way to prevent or reduce crime, costs a whole lot more than life in prison, and, worst of all, risks executions of innocent people.

The worst thing about it. Errors:

The system can make tragic and irreversible mistakes. In 2004, Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas for starting the fire that killed his children. Multiple forensic experts have since found that the arson "science" his conviction was based on was actually just junk science. As of today, 139 wrongly convicted people who were sentenced to death have been exonerated. DNA, is rarely available in homicides and can’t guarantee we won’t execute innocent people. Obviously, if someone is convicted and later found innocent you can release him from prison, but not from the grave.

Crime reduction (deterrence):

The death penalty doesn't stop others from committing murder. Homicide rates are consistently higher in states and regions with the death penalty than in those without it. The most recent FBI data confirms this.

Punishing and keeping killers off the streets for good:

Life without parole, on the books in 49 states (all except Alaska), also prevents reoffending. It means what it says, and spending 23 of 24 hours a day locked in a tiny cell is no picnic. Two advantages:

-an innocent person serving life can be released from prison

-life without parole costs less than the death penalty

Costs, a surprise to many people:

The death penalty is much more expensive than life in prison. The high costs of the death penalty are for the complicated legal process, with the largest costs at the pre-trial and trial stages. The point is to avoid executing innocent people. There are tremendous expenses in a death penalty case whether or not the defendant is convicted, let alone sentenced to death.

Who gets it:

Contrary to popular belief, the death penalty isn't reserved for the worst crimes, but for defendants with the worst lawyers. It doesn't apply to people with money. When is the last time a wealthy person was on death row, let alone executed?

Victims:

People assume that families of murder victims certainly want the death penalty imposed. It just isn't so. Some are against it on moral grounds. But even families who have supported the death penalty in principle have testified that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

It comes down to whether we should keep a system for the sake of retribution or revenge even though it isn’t effective in reducing violent crime, costs much more than alternatives and, worst of all, can lead to the nightmare of executing someone for a crime he didn’t commit.

Everyone do deserve a second chance, but you must keep in mind that many people have been given a second chance only to disappoint us more and more; they constantly offend. there is an old saying that relates to a situation like this and it goes, "the end justifies the means."

This means, that sometimes it is neccessary to do one morally wrong to get a morally right outcome. In other words, would you kill one man, who was about to blow up a tall building, to save the life of 10,000 people? if your son, daughter, or loved one suddenly got sick or was wounded severly, would you break the speed limit to get them to the hospital and save their life or would you go the sped limit and lat them die? You see, sometimes it is more important to think about the innocent. In that way, they suffer no risk if and when the system fails.

P.S.: I am for the death penalty.

Hope this answers your question!

The penalty should depend on how heinous the crime is.

Death Penalty ,..if deserved should be given. So i guess i am in favor of Death penalty.

I think that if somebody murders someone, they DESERVE to die. Also rapists, torturers, child abusers... anything else I've left off, too. I wouldn't want murderers alive.

Take this case:

"James Patrick Bulger, a two-year-old child from Kirkby, Merseyside, England, was abducted, tortured and murdered. The perpetrators were two 10-year-old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. Bulger disappeared on 12 February 1993 from the New Strand Shopping Centre, Bootle, while accompanying his mother, and his mutilated body was found on a railway line in nearby Walton on 14 February. Thompson and Venables were charged on 20 February 1993 with the abduction and murder.

"Thompson and Venables were found guilty of the murder of Bulger on 24 November 1993, making them the youngest convicted murderers in modern English history. They were sentenced to custody until they reached adulthood, initially until the age of 18, and were released on lifelong licence in June 2001. The case has prompted widespread debate on the issue of how to handle young offenders when they are sentenced or released from custody."

These two deserved to die for what they did. I don't care how old they were, they should have died.

The death penalty was abolished in the '60s because the police ended up killing the wrong people sometimes. I think that this was a bad idea. They should have kept the death penalty because now there are murderers walking around free... we just don't know who they are (witness protection).

Thompson and Venables were released from prison and Thompson was given a new identity. Now, we, as taxpayers, pay to keep them safe -- it costs a lot of money to do a witness protection. We should not have to pay for these bastards to be kept safe. If they were let out, they should have had to pay for witness protection themselves and, seeing as they couldn't have afforded it, they should have been at the mercy of the public.

I would have killed them myself if I had been Bulger's mother or father.

Venables committed another offence and is now back in prison (I think, I could be wrong).

Take this case:

"Mary Flora Bell was convicted in December 1968 of the manslaughter of two boys, Martin Brown (aged four years) and Brian Howe (aged three years). Bell was ten years old at the time of one of the killings, and eleven at the time of the other."

Would you want this girl to live if she had killed *your* child? I, again, don't care how old she was -- she DESERVED to die.

Mary Bell is now a grandmother at 51. Recently, her daughter was bullied at school because the papers found out who she was (she was under witness protection). Would you want to have *your* daughter bullied if you had killed someone? I'd want to die.

Take this case:

"Charles Milles Manson is an American criminal who led what became known as the Manson Family (the "Family"), a quasi-commune that arose in California in the late 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate/LaBianca murders, carried out by members of the group at his instruction. He was convicted of the murders themselves through the joint-responsibility rule, which makes each member of a conspiracy guilty of crimes his fellow conspirators commit in furtherance of the conspiracy's object."

He didn't kill them. He made others do it. Yet he still should have been given the death sentence (he is still alive at 75).

EDIT:

Why do people always give me a thumbs down for this answer? I am just giving my opinion, and then backing it up. There's nothing wrong with that.

I am opposed to the death penalty.

There is always a risk that an innocent person is sentenced to death and executed.

if they kill they should go to jail, if you kill them with: hanging, injection, electric chair etc; you are just as bad. against death penalty definitely

Against. Life (and really for life) imprisonment.

against, everyone deserves a second chance