lethal injection

[shypsychologyguy]

in my city this is a current issue regarding a 20 year old case where a man killed a police officer during a robbery.

my thoughts: there are too many caes of innocent people being executed and also cases of adolescents and the mentally ill or handicapped.

I am not against it in this instance or any instance where the guilt can be proven with little doubt.

[Tal]

I don't agree with execution. Although I guess the principle of 'an eye for an eye' seems just when you've been wronged, it doesn't always achieve much - just spreads hostility in most cases.

Particularly with regards to executing murders:

- it won't bring the murder victim back
- it won't wipe the memory of the murder away
- it's rather inhumane to keep the prisoner locked up for 20+ years knowing they're going to die (though perhaps they deserve that mental torture),
- I read/heard somewhere that it costs more to execute someone than to keep them in prison
- it formally gives the state and judiciary the power to decide who lives and dies
- there's always a risk, you've killed the wrong person

Though perhaps for the criminal at least, a quick death is a better alternative to spending the rest of their life behind bars.

[wonkothesane]

If your going to have a state I just don't think it should be involved with killing people. Lethal injection isn't a painless death, the person is given muscel relaxant that stops convulsions and spasms being visble to the witnesses. It meant to be quite agonising but it looks like your just lying there.

[Samantha]

It is cold blooded murder. I am against it.

[gSteve]

The death penalty is evil, its just state murder, murder is wrong no matter who is doing it.

[MrNice]

state murder
religious hypocricy

[Some Guy]

I was going to start a poll and thread on this, SPG beat me.

I am completely against the death penalty, its revenge rather than justice. I have argued with friends over it a few times in the past.

[wagnerr]

I'm okay with the death penalty, as long as the methods used for execution are humane and don't resort to torture. Lethal injection i'm okay with, because it's far more humane than such methods used in the past, suc as the firing squad, hanging, or the electric chair, i think.

I just think that some individuals, after showing their capacity for murder or other extreme crimes like kidnapping or rape, in some instances multiple times, need to be removed from society for good.

Therapy and rehabilitation of such individuals i'd be all for, if they actually worked. In such cases involving sociopaths, for example, i don't think any rehabilitaion could be done successfully.

Just my opinion, that's all.

[Buzzz]

Beyond people like Osama bin Laden- who's very existence is a threat to other people's lives- there's no reason to execute anyone.

I wasn't exactly heartbroken when the federal government killed Tim McVeigh, but what point was there in it?

[Sigh]

I don't agree with it... there are already enough miscarriages of justice as it is, people being wrongly charged and imprisoned. If there was a death penalty, people if wrongly convicted could end up dead for no reason. Which I am sure is one of the reasons why the death penalty was abolished in this country.

Also the death penalty is pretty vengeful.

[shypsychologyguy]

what about excuting military officials like was done with the nazi leadership after ww2.

if someone kills another person especially a child /children such as timothy mcveigh do they not deserve the same treatment of which they commited.

i do agree that innocent people being executed is a problem but alot of that occured prior to dna evidence so the probability of it happening now has gone down.

the whole legal system is flawed. the innocent person is already considered guilty (by jury member bias) and must prove otherwise rather than being innocent and then proven guilty. we talked alot about this in class

innocent people get convicted does that mean we should stop convicting people all together.

definently not.

[shypsychologyguy]

"My name is indigo monteya you killed my father prepare to die" from the princess bride

[Paulinus]

shypsychologyguy said:

innocent people get convicted does that mean we should stop convicting people all together.

Someone wrongly convicted still has the chance of having the conviction overturned. If they are executed you cant resurrect them.

[Buzzz]

shypsychologyguy said:

what about excuting military officials like was done with the nazi leadership after ww2.

What about it? I'm not saying that their deaths bothered me, but what did it accomplish?

if someone kills another person especially a child /children such as timothy mcveigh do they not deserve the same treatment of which they commited.

So what if they "deserve" it? I run into a lot of people in the course of the day that deserve to be hit upside the head, but that doesn't mean I should do it.

I deserve to be a millionaire. When is the government going to give me a million dollars?

i do agree that innocent people being executed is a problem but alot of that occured prior to dna evidence so the probability of it happening now has gone down.

But it's not gone completely, which means the possibility of the state executing an innocent person is always there.

innocent people get convicted does that mean we should stop convicting people all together.

definently not.

It means we need sweeping reform of our legal system, and we shouldn't even think of executing anyone until then.

P.S.
Shift key (+) / (=) ?
Please remember that.

[GreenFerret]

Doesn't rehabilitation sort of not work way too much of the time? In the case of the mentally ill, it's all too easy to stop taking a pill. In the case of someone who killed in rage, it's simple to swear up and down that you'd never do it again--but they probably didn't think themself capable of killing in the first place. In the case of someone who murders for gain or to hide another crime, what good is it for them to say they'd never do it again, when they were able to willfully and intelligently do so before?--and how can you force empathy upon someone who just doesn't have that capacity?

Also, doesn't it cost more to execute someone than to just keep them in jail mostly because of the long delay and the prisoner's solitary confinement? So if the execution were timely, the cost should be much lower.

I do believe that there are cases when people simply deserve to die; where it doesn't make sense to leave a person alive. Cases of multiple killings for thrill or sexual gratification; murder/rapes; any case of multiple unprovoked killings that are either planned together or committed over a period of time. To me, these people are just a burden on society; they can't be trusted to govern themselves, and aren't worth the penal system's efforts to keep them alive and fed, clothed, etc.

I don't really see the point in the argument that murder is "always wrong." I was taught it was "always wrong" to detain anyone against their will or coerce them to do anything they didn't want to do. Does that mean the state should refrain from incarcerating violent criminals, because it's "wrong" to hamper their individual freedom? No, or at least I don't think many people think so; there are always exceptions to the rules. I've been taught never to cause physically harm to anyone, let alone kill a human being, and under normal circumstances I certainly wouldn't. But if someone is coming at me with a knife and I've got a gun in my hand, I'm not going to deliberate about the morality of pulling the trigger--I'm going to shoot.

To me, the people I've already described are the uquivalent of a man coming at someone--in this case, society at large--with a knife. They've gone so far to break the rules of civilized conduct, and in turn they hardly deserve to be dealt with under the same ordinary rules of civilized conduct.

Punishment of any sort is, to me, much the same as revenge. Whether you're ending a life or throwing it into a cold, barred cell with some shady characters--that's neither crime prevention nor rehabilitation. What real purpose does it serve to take this person's life away from them and replace it with something as harsh as prison? Even if you argue that it's meant to serve as a deterrent to further crime--which if I'm not mistaken, doesn't work very well at all--then wouldn't a universally imposed one or two-year sentence be just as effective in proving to the prisoner how unpleasant it is? These places are notorious for the dehumanizing activities that take place in many if not most institutions of that nature--guards that don't give a crap, or who abuse their power; inmates who manage to murder and rape one another. But people don't seem to mind--the prisoners "deserve it." It's "punishment enough."

So the goal *is* a sort of vengence upon wrongdoers, no? If it were not, wouldn't there *be* no prison, and the system would be solely concerned with treatment, therapy, and intensive rehabilitation--or in the case of the untreatable, there might be some sort of supervized intependent living establishments where they could live relatively normal lives without posing a problem to society. Maybe that's some people's ideal, but I doubt it's most people's.

Last thing I'll say--if there's no point to killing Timothy McVeigh... what is the point of keeping him alive, either? Was that the "moral" thing to do? Why is it moral to keep a mass-murderer alive, in that case? And what makes "right" right?--surely it isn't a sense of fairness. Fairness implies equality, and leaving a multiple murderer alive isn't "fair;" yet some say it is not justice to kill him... but "justice" is often used synonymously with "fairness..." So what makes an unfair sentence just; what makes a fair sentence unjust and therefore vengeful--and perhaps most importantly, what makes vengeance so inherrently wrong, evil, and un-human, even though it may be fair--or even less than fair in light of the crimes committed--when it harms no one other than the one who has caused harm?

I could go on. But I won't, for now.


(btw this argument is always assuming a case in which there is unquestionable evidence for the person having committed the crime; if there isn't any, then death off the table, ya)

oh, and apologies for the crazy length and rambling...