Death Penalty

How do you all feel about the Death Penalty? I am against it - life without any chance of parole is my preference. I cannot think of a greater punishment than knowing that you will have to spend the rest of your life with others of like moral compulsion.

I have no problem with it, as long as there is plenty of evidence and they have the right person. My parents had a friend who was murdered, shot in the back, an older guy in his 70's who had a dry cleaning business in Chicago. He was robbed and they caught the guy who did it, he knew he wouldn't get the death penalty, and made a mockery of the system. I was hoping that someone who take him out in jail...JMTCW

In the last 20 years or so, can you think of a rich or famous person who ever got the death penalty?

My only complaints regarding the death penalty is that it is not used enough and those that have been sentenced to die are given way too many appeals and are not executed in a timely manner. They should only be given one appeal and in order for that to be sucessful they should have to prove that they did not commit the crime for which the people have already proved they did commit. The appeal process should not be allowed to extend beyond 1 year.

Have you read The Confession by John Grisham? A true story about a young man who was wrongly identified as the murderer. He went though a number of appeals and when his attorney found the man who was guilty(and had a confession) it was too late. The young man had been executed. If he had been given life without parole he would be alive now.

Our legal system is not perfect and I understand the logic of hoping and praying that not one innocent person ever be executed as opposed to 1,000 guilty ones not being executed, while we exhaust every dollar of taxpayer money and spend years
with the appeals process.

There is logic behind both sides of the issue, but mostly passion.
We now have DNA involved heavily in the legal system, but even that is not without flaw or absolutely 100% perfect. The problem is IMO that this issue and the abortion issue are the two biggest issues that we will never totally agree on, kind of like partisanship.

Our system calls for a jury of one's peers. I couldn't personally call 12 people who couldn't figure out how to get out of jury duty, my peers! But it is a better system than the rest of them IMO. Personally I agree with Ronbo.

What's fair about public dollars spent to house a criminal menace to society for 10, 20 even 60 or more years? And all the while, that person sits around contributing nothing back to the individual, persons or society that he harmed.

How about putting the criminals to work? Make them pay back society by repairing our infrastructure, picking strawberries (bye, bye illegals) or fighting wildfires?

"Hey buddy, do you want to die by lethal injection, or pick cotton for as long as you live?"

Instead, too many of our prisons have become institutions of higher criminal education. When the bums do get out, they have way more skills and talents to continue lives of crime then they did going in.

There is logic behind both sides of the issue, but mostly passion.

Passion? Sure, I'll agree with that. But this was written by a conservative, not a bleeding heart liberal. As I said in my original post I cannot think of a harsher punishment, bar none.

How about putting the criminals to work? Make them pay back society by repairing our infrastructure, picking strawberries (bye, bye illegals) or fighting wildfires?

"Hey buddy, do you want to die by lethal injection, or pick cotton for as long as you live?"

Instead, too many of our prisons have become institutions of higher criminal education. When the bums do get out, they have way more skills and talents to continue lives of crime then they did going in.

:agree:

texan wrote:

There is logic behind both sides of the issue, but mostly passion.

Passion? Sure, I'll agree with that. But this was written by a conservative, not a bleeding heart liberal. As I said in my original post I cannot think of a harsher punishment, bar none.

How about putting the criminals to work? Make them pay back society by repairing our infrastructure, picking strawberries (bye, bye illegals) or fighting wildfires?

"Hey buddy, do you want to die by lethal injection, or pick cotton for as long as you live?"

Instead, too many of our prisons have become institutions of higher criminal education. When the bums do get out, they have way more skills and talents to continue lives of crime then they did going in.

:agree:

I might agree if they actaully made jail time more like punishment. They should not have TV or any other electronics available to them and they should be required to work 10 hours a day of manual labor to pay for their room and board. They should also not have access to any exercise equipment. Their manual labor would be their exercise for the day.

I might agree if they actaully made jail time more like punishment. They should not have TV or any other electronics available to them and they should be required to work 10 hours a day of manual labor to pay for their room and board. They should also not have access to any exercise equipment. Their manual labor would be their exercise for the day.

Oh I agree but with one exception. One hour after dinner to read, meditate, even watch TV. Other than that I want to make their remaining years a living hell on earth. To me, the death penalty is a copout.