At 6/23/14 11:30 AM, Radaketor wrote:

At 6/23/14 08:59 AM, Makakaov wrote: even if we did that, then there would still be more deaths from car accidents and falling from higher stories than accidental executions on innocent people.

I know more people die in various other situation besides death penalty, but does the death of say 200 people who actually did the crimes they were convicted for justify the deaths of 20 innocent and wrongly accused people?

Just as 200 people who got to job in time justify death of 20 innocent people who died in vehicular accidents.

Just as 200 people who defended themselves from robbers justify 20 innocent people who got shot on the street by maniacs.

Just as 200 people who have home and don't have to sleep on the dirty streets justify 20 people who fell off high buildings and died. Accidentally.

Just as 200 people who live solely because of special electrical aparature justifies death of 20 people who died accidentally electrocuted.

Just as 200 people saved by seatbelts justify 20 people who died because of seatbelts.

Just as 200 people happy that we don't exterminate wild dangerous animals justify 20 people who died killed by those animals.

Just as 200 happy pottheads justify 20 deadly accidents which were provoked by marijuana.

I could go on, but I think you get the idea; that's how democracy works.

Well, now we're getting into not sparing the person getting executed, but rather the executioner. People still have to do this, and then go on with their lives after. Rinse and repeat. It's an important job, and if we authorized those kinds of executions... Well, no one except for murderers would want to work in prisons.

Besides, hell is where all the fun limb-tearing, fingernail-ripping, body heating torture stuff starts happening. Our job is to just send 'em there.

At 6/23/14 11:42 AM, JimmyTheCaterpillar wrote: Well, now we're getting into not sparing the person getting executed, but rather the executioner. People still have to do this, and then go on with their lives after. Rinse and repeat. It's an important job, and if we authorized those kinds of executions... Well, no one except for murderers would want to work in prisons.

BAM. Excellent fucking point, good sir! That is an excellent point that really does need to be addressed in the argument!

Lethal injection was cruel, so they replaced it!

Yeah because we definitely want to force state employees to perform brutal and sadistic acts on prisoners, and possibly get scared for life by doing so. Even worst, we could have people who volunteer for this job, I don't see the issue with people who seek to do this kind of job.

We don't torture and mutilate prisoners because the state is supposed to be the representative of social order, justice, equity and to represent the rights of every citizen in the country no matter who they are. Don't you see an ethical issue somewhere in there?

At 6/23/14 12:29 PM, Elitistinen wrote:

At 6/23/14 11:56 AM, DrHood wrote: Lethal injection was cruel, so they replaced it!

Hmm, I wonder why don't they overdose the inmate with sleep meds. The most humane way.

Sleeping meds to become approved have to fulfill some conditions. One of them is that organism pukes them out in case of overdose.

At 6/23/14 11:56 AM, DrHood wrote: Lethal injection was cruel, so they replaced it!

This... is amazing...

why would you kill someone slowly and painfully when you can do it quickly and painlessly? The end result is the same ultimately they'll be dead anyway

why?

Because if you start indulging in sadism it will know no bounds and there will be a market for it as it turns into the execution industrial complex.

the american judicial/prison system is already barbaric anyway.

At 6/23/14 03:28 AM, TailsPrower wrote: As much as I enjoy the suffering of others, torture-based executions as a form of punishment for heinous crimes is in itself disgustingly hypocritical. The system must hold itself to a higher standard in the manner it deals justice or else it proves that it's just as barbaric and sinister as the criminals they put to death.

Basically, this.

Although, the lengths that modern society goes through to make executions sterile and comfortable is disgusting.

Nobody cares if the needle they use for the lethal injections has been sterilized, and there is nothing wrong with something like a guillotine if it can be guaranteed to kill them instantly.

It is probably just another excuse to leech money out of the system. All of that equipment and those chemicals cost a lot more than any guillotine would.

Because not all the people who are "proven guilty" have actually committed the crime.

At 6/23/14 03:22 PM, Bit wrote: It is probably just another excuse to leech money out of the system. All of that equipment and those chemicals cost a lot more than any guillotine would.

The administrative process costs more money then the actual material used for the execution, though. It used to at least, but my infos might be dated :P

I'm not a fan of the death penalty in the US as a method of deterrence, as most murders are crimes of passion and impulse... somebody didn't intend to kill anyone but they did. You can't deter somebody from an idea they haven't had yet until it suddenly happens and they can't take it back. The social contract and our natural inclination to try to get along with each other means that even if there were no death penalty, the vast majority of people would still somehow resist the urge to kill each other.

I'm also not a fan of the death penalty as a matter of "justice" because justice isn't really defined overall and I don't think it will be. We could talk about punishment equal to the crime, but our justice system itself doesn't even fully believe in that. Deals are cut all the time for sake of conviction rates, or getting the "worse" criminal in a group. You can steal $5 million from your neighbors and get 5 years in prison or rob a corner store and get 5 years in prison. And say murder is on the table... well if you kill one person you can say fine, death penalty. What if you kill 17 people? We can't kill you 17 times. Justice is so ill-defined and fluid a concept that I don't trust it to be used effectively by the state.

For that matter: there are people who wouldn't trust the state (remember, it's the state that executes) for pretty much anything else in life: licensing, taxes, requiring them to get car insurance... but when it's time to kill somebody suddenly they're all on board? Why does the taking of life not rise to the same level of scrutiny as what we demand when we want a pothole in the road fixed, when it's placed in the hands of the same monolithic unfeeling bureaucracy populated by the same fallible human beings?

I do not support the death penalty because there have been legitimately innocent people on death row and statistically there are more we will find out about. With that hanging over the question, I do not take the belief that someone who didn't commit a crime should "take one for the team" to keep the death penalty viable for the real criminals. That's flawed thinking that invalidates the deterrence theory. If you can be killed by the state even if you didn't do anything, then why not go ahead and commit crimes and at least get the momentary benefit of those crimes and just hope you don't get caught? And the executioners cannot be guaranteed in all instances that they are truly executing a guilty individual, so either you must hire sociopaths who cannot psychologically bring themselves to care about killing an innocent person, or you must deal with high turnover as executioners don't find the process fun and don't tend to volunteer for many of them.

Not only that, but saying that the potential number of innocent people is low seems incredibly insensitive to me since it's not just about the number of people killed. Murder of an innocent is punishable by death in the system. Who's willing to sign up for a job in which you get to kill people but yeah there's a possibility that we'll have to then kill you for killing people? The possibility might be 1% but that's both cruel to the executed and executioner. And somebody above who'll probably still watch this thread was mentioning things like banning cars or windows... that they equate accidental deaths with the willful authorization by the state to seek out and capture and murder people is itself unfortunate. Yes, every death of an innocent is unfortunate, but there has to be a higher standard for permitting the state to murder on society's behalf. Since that's what we're doing: unless we can perfectly determine guilt in all instances of the death penalty, we are saying that murder is illegal, except when the government does it. I would not call that justice, by any measure or definition.

At 6/23/14 10:33 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: personally, i find the concept of spending years in any corrections facility type completely unnecessary as well. months will do just fine.

Yeah, that's kind of just false. If you did anykind of sociological, psychological, judiciary or criminological studies on the matter of criminality, sociopaths, violence, etc. you pretty much know that this isn't true. A lifetime of conditionning to become a psycopath doesn't just change in a few months of therapy, especially considering how resistant to outside help these individuals are. Hell! What about political crimes? What about people like Breivik? You think that you can just make individuals like these stop believing the things they believe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDO6HV6xTmI

At 6/23/14 03:14 AM, frigi wrote: I keep hearing "new methods of humane executions" like when France made the guillotine they did it to make a humane form of execution. My question is why does executions have to be humane? Why cant the be more like the bronze ox execution, where someone is placed in a hollowed bronze ox and it is heated cooking the person inside. Or the one where they hang the person upside down and saw them in half.

It might interest you to know, that the person who invented the iron bull torture device were themselves killed by the very same invention as punishment for making it.

Also like everyone else says, torture is completely and fundamentally wrong, and if people were to start doing it again it would not only become more socially acceptable as an idea towards the population if their law is doing it, and also the only people who could do such torture, to look people into the eyes as they force them into a death machine or personally torture them with their own hands are NOT people you would want to give any sort of power to. Likely leading in even more psychopaths.

The world is slowly becoming better and having good things more acceptable, the last thing societies need is to send the judicial system back several hundred years.

I think you and him have lots in common.