Should this murderer get the death penalty?

[Sbane]

Yes, but it is a matter of opinion of whether or not it is an adequate punishment. I happen to believe it isn't.

Why is killing someone more of a punishment than locking them up for life? In my opinion you just let them out of their misery sooner.

[Franzl]

Shadow of the Wave is going around in circles here.

He made a claim that killing someone caused you to lose your own right to life.

Then he went on to explain that by saying society had to prevent the killer from killing again, and upon hearing that life imprisonment would accomplish the same goal, he simply said he felt it was not adequate punishment.

None of that has to do with the original statement and my question.

[Old Man Willow]

Shadow of the Wave is going around in circles here.

He made a claim that killing someone caused you to lose your own right to life.

Then he went on to explain that by saying society had to prevent the killer from killing again, and upon hearing that life imprisonment would accomplish the same goal, he simply said he felt it was not adequate punishment.

None of that has to do with the original statement and my question.

We do not need to waste space filling up our prisons with people that serve no purpose in society other than destroying it. My explanation was basic reasoning for the death penalty. Yes, life imprisonement can work as well, but my personal philosophy remains that people should be killed for killing.

In response to benwah's comment, I really didn't think I needed to get into intent, but sometimes people just assume things in order to fit their own argument. Killing someone who kills another is once again helping society. The person killing that person would be saving others rather than becoming part of the problem.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Shadow of the Wave is going around in circles here.

He made a claim that killing someone caused you to lose your own right to life.

Then he went on to explain that by saying society had to prevent the killer from killing again, and upon hearing that life imprisonment would accomplish the same goal, he simply said he felt it was not adequate punishment.

None of that has to do with the original statement and my question.

We do not need to waste space filling up our prisons with people that serve no purpose in society other than destroying it. My explanation was basic reasoning for the death penalty. Yes, life imprisonement can work as well, but my personal philosophy remains that people should be killed for killing.

In response to benwah's comment, I really didn't think I needed to get into intent, but sometimes people just assume things in order to fit their own argument. Killing someone who kills another is once again helping society. The person killing that person would be saving others rather than becoming part of the problem.

No, i think it doesn't help the society, i think it's most likely the opposite. When you kill someone for a fault he committed, you don't try to see the flaws, and you don't try to improve your society, you just eliminate the visibility of a problem, you don't try to rule the problem, you don't try to get how he could have done that and how it could be possible to improve a human being. When you do that, your society intellectually stagnates and is condemned to know again and again the same problems.

Plus, and i didn't want to open this debate, because it is such an huge one, but, are you sure we have choices of what we do? And even if you think we would have would it be even a small part of choice, do you think it is enough to resist to all of the casualty chain that is our environment? With such interrogation, how can you allow yourself to take the life of an other one, where is his actual responsibility in what he does?

And once again, if ever you come to admit he does the evil in his plain choice, killing someone doesn't rule a problem, it just removes the visibility of it.

[Torie]

Yes if we are certain we have the right killer.

How are we ever certain unless he does it in the middle of a crowd and then sits on the body unmoving until the police arrive?   Digital evidence is getting easier and easier to fabricate, right? To those that think life in prison is almost equally unjust...who knows what technology like DNA will come along?  If the alleged killer admits it, do we know it wasn't forced?  What if an innocent man would rather be killed than spend life being raped by the other inmatess?  And we still have an adversarial justice system that essentially rewards overzealous prosecutors and indeed prosecutor misconduct.

I think the biggest problem for us anti-death penalty people is that oftentimes the most obviously weak cases against the condemned are supplemented by the accused being a genuinely bad person.  Wife-beaters, people accused of past crimes, etc. are all more likely to end up in jail falsely than your prototypical rich suburban types....

Lunar, some murders I think we know beyond per adventure who the killer is. Consider that guy who blew away a bunch of folks from a tower at some university in Houston about 15 years ago. Some kills are on tape. Others have DNA evidence. I suspect that we know to a moral certainly who the killer is in a majority of death penalty cases. Sure we know nothing for certain, or so the philosophers tell us, but if the odds get high enough to reach a moral even if not absolute certainty that is good enough for me - say where a life is at stake a million to one, or something along those lines.

Sure a lot of murders are prosecuted on thin evidence for often execrable ulterior motives. As I say, nobody gets sentenced to death without a higher court making a moral certainty finding. That is my opinion.

[Lunar]

Yes if we are certain we have the right killer.

How are we ever certain unless he does it in the middle of a crowd and then sits on the body unmoving until the police arrive?   Digital evidence is getting easier and easier to fabricate, right? To those that think life in prison is almost equally unjust...who knows what technology like DNA will come along?  If the alleged killer admits it, do we know it wasn't forced?  What if an innocent man would rather be killed than spend life being raped by the other inmatess?  And we still have an adversarial justice system that essentially rewards overzealous prosecutors and indeed prosecutor misconduct.

I think the biggest problem for us anti-death penalty people is that oftentimes the most obviously weak cases against the condemned are supplemented by the accused being a genuinely bad person.  Wife-beaters, people accused of past crimes, etc. are all more likely to end up in jail falsely than your prototypical rich suburban types....

Lunar, some murders I think we know beyond per adventure who the killer is. Consider that guy who blew away a bunch of folks from a tower at some university in Houston about 15 years ago. Some kills are on tape. Others have DNA evidence. I suspect that we know to a moral certainly who the killer is in a majority of death penalty cases. Sure we know nothing for certain, or so the philosophers tell us, but if the odds get high enough to reach a moral even if not absolute certainty that is good enough for me - say where a life is at stake a million to one, or something along those lines.

Sure a lot of murders are prosecuted on thin evidence for often execrable ulterior motives. As I say, nobody gets sentenced to death without a higher court making a moral certainty finding. That is my opinion.

I'm not going to deny that it's a complicated issue.  As I've said many of times, the biggest challenge for those of us who are against the death penalty is finding good people who are subjected to it.  I mean, the base case we have of an innocent man executed was a guy who beat his wife and had def leppard posters, but who also loved his children and was accused of killing them in a clearly accidental fire...I'll give you the link to his last statement or the dozen Page New Yorker article on his innocence

I mean, we all know who is guilty in some cases.  We all know O.J. did it.  But that's no basis for a system to be based on.

I'm happy to debate better when it isn't 4am. 

[Gustaf]

1. A lot of people seem to think vengeance is not a good enough motive for punishment. I definitely think it is. That isn't "barbaric" or "primitive" it can easily be supported by philosophical principles consistent with a high legal standard. And it is, in fact, the principle on which our legal system in civilized countries is based. I think a good question to ask is this: if not vengeance, then what is the basis of our punishments?

2. "Deterrence" while it can be debated does have some empirical support. Besides, death penalty can prevent crime, not so much by deterring people before they commit a crime, but by preventing them from doing it again. In Sweden it is rather common-place for criminals to get out and repeat their crimes. And before someone cries "jail for life" that doesn't seem to materialize in most cases. At least in Sweden, the average jail time for a person with a life sentence is 8 years.

3. A lot of people are saying jail-time could be a worse punishment than death penalty from the perspective of the criminal. That makes no sense. If he really thought so, wouldn't he just kill himself?

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

3. A lot of people are saying jail-time could be a worse punishment than death penalty from the perspective of the criminal. That makes no sense. If he really thought so, wouldn't he just kill himself?

Suicides in prison is an actual reality. Growing in France.

1. A lot of people seem to think vengeance is not a good enough motive for punishment. I definitely think it is. That isn't "barbaric" or "primitive" it can easily be supported by philosophical principles consistent with a high legal standard. And it is, in fact, the principle on which our legal system in civilized countries is based. I think a good question to ask is this: if not vengeance, then what is the basis of our punishments?

That could make my point, given that I don't support vengeance, for reasons mentioned in my above post.

[Sbane]

2.  At least in Sweden, the average jail time for a person with a life sentence is 8 years.

3. A lot of people are saying jail-time could be a worse punishment than death penalty from the perspective of the criminal. That makes no sense. If he really thought so, wouldn't he just kill himself?

Not sure about Sweden, but here we have a life sentence without the possibility of parole. That to me seems like a just punishment for murder.

It is my opinion that a life sentence is better than just putting the guy out of his misery within 10 years or so. A lot of prisoners I am sure do not agree with me but that is because of the inherent fear of death in humans as well as belief of hell, heaven and all that BS. A person with a life sentence ends up getting a greater punishment in my view, especially when you take out any possibility of parole regardless of behavior.