Heinous crimes must be punish with death penalty?

Question

Heinous crimes must be punish with death penalty?

Answer 1

Like a lot of people, I supported the death penalty on financial grounds.  Then I learned that it's nearly twice as expensive to execute someone in the US because of the lengthy and costly appeals process.  

Answer 2

How is this a history question? I'll answer it anyway because I feel strongly about it. I support the death penalty, but like others have said the system is highly flawed. We need to seriously overhaul the process in order to continue to use it. Personally I think that anyone guilty of a violent crime should simply be taken out back and have their throat slit. I don't care if it doesn't realistically deter crime, it's justice.

Answer 3

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 30 years in the U.S. alone, over 100 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. No matter how rare it is, the government should not risk executing one single innocent person.

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

2. Because of higher pre-trial expenses, longer trials, jury sequestration, extra expenses associated with prosecuting a DP case, separate sentencing trials, and the appeals process (which is necessary - see reason #1), it costs taxpayers MUCH more to execute prisoners than to imprison them for life.

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). Personally, I think it 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. 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."

5. 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. 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. Leviticus 19:18 warns against vengeance (which, really, is what the death penalty amounts to). In John 8:7, Jesus himself says, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Answer 4

Being locked up forever behind a bar may be a good punishment for heinous crimes as there is a chance of reversing the case if the person was said to be innocent. Death penalty may be good, but there is also a chance that a person was being punished for a crime not committed and once a death penalty is carried out, it is irreversible when a person who was sentenced to death earlier was found out to be innocent.

Answer 5

Although the eye-for-an-eye crowd seem to think that there is justice in the death penalty, the deterrence value of capital punishment and the cost simply don't justify it's use in the United States.

Answer 6

No - the system is too flawed, and intrinsically so.  

129 people on death rows have been released with proof that they were wrongfully convicted. DNA, available in less than 10% of all homicides, can’t guarantee we won’t execute innocent people.  We can't expect any system created by human beings to be error free.

The death penalty doesn't prevent others from committing murder. No reliable study shows the death penalty deters others. Homicide rates are higher in states and regions that have it than in those that don’t.

Life without parole, on the books in 48 states, also prevents  reoffending. It means what it says, and spending 23 of 24 hours a day locked in a tiny cell is not a picnic. Life without parole costs less than the death penalty.

The death penalty is much more expensive than life in prison, mostly because of the upfront costs of legal process which is supposed to prevent executions of innocent people. (upfront=before and during the initial trial)

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?

The death penalty doesn't necessarily help families of murder victims. Murder victim family members have testified that the drawn-out death penalty process is painful for them and that life without parole is an appropriate alternative.

Problems with speeding up the process. Over 50 of the innocent people released from death row had already served over a decade. Speed up the process and we will execute innocent people.

Sources:

Death Penalty Information Center, www.deathpenaltyinfo.org,  for stats on executions, reports on costs, deterrence studies, links to FBI crime stats and links to testimony (at state legislatures) of victims' family members.

FBI   http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/tab...  

The Innocence Project, www.innocenceproject.org on the causes of wrongful convictions

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/COcostte... page 3 and 4 on why the death penalty is so expensive

http://www.njadp.org/forms/signon-surviv... for statements of victims’ families

Answer 7

I used to be a death-penalty supporter, however...

the death penalty obviously has not stopped violent crimals from continuing to murder,

and there is always the slight chance that the trial was either wrongly manipulated, or an witness was mistaken, etc...

so, now I no longer support it...