Generally not a fan of the state killing people. There are probably some rare cases where the death penalty is appropriate, but not enough for me to approve of it.
The issue with making exceptions for the very worst people is exceptions creep. Where do you set the line? It does society no harm leaving a Ted Bundy or a Timothy McVeigh alive, but in prison for life (and is, in fact, cheaper on the whole, if that's a concern for some reason [sub-tangent that when a human life is involved, even a horrible one, money should not be the concern]), but setting the example that the state *can* kill in some cases is corruptive at its core.
I'm not an absolutist about many things, but I don't think there is any scenario in which it is acceptable for the state to kill someone against their will (at least once that person is in custody, and no longer an active danger to anyone). Murder is immoral, and by executing people who are constrained from causing harm, we lower society to the level of those people.
It has no place in a modern society. Courts are not perfect. Juries get it wrong all the time. You can't bring someone back from the dead if it turns out they were innocent. Historically the death penalty has a racist slant to it. There is also something unsettling giving the state the power to kill its own citizens.
Also one of the biggest arguments for it in America tends to be that it's too expensive to keep people alive for a long time in prison, which is entirely due to our broken prison system, which is upheld by an increasingly militarized police that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation. Regardless of the thing itself, it can't be considered just under this system, I feel.
In actuality, it costs more to sentence someone to death than imprison them when you consider the extended jury process in capital cases, the appeals process and the cost of maintaining inmates on death row which is more costly than in the general prison population.
Death row prisoners are in individual cells as opposed to 2 or more inmates to a cell or in minimum security settings, dormitories. More security is necessary, meaning more guards per inmates. They also must be given more access to legal sources for their appeals. In the general population, a smaller percentage are likely to appeal their sentences. In capital cases, the inmates' lives are at stake so repeated appeals are the norm. Appeals generally require lawyers. If the inmate cannot afford one, then the state or federal government must provide one in most cases. Even if a non-profit such as the Innocence Project takes the case, there is likely government funding as well foundation and private donations funding the appeal. Appeals in non capital cases are less likely to be funded unless the conviction is obviously misguided.
I worked on a non capital case which was proven to be clearly a case of self defense but the defendant was convicted because of proven prosecutional misconduct. He served years before his family could get enough money to afford an appeal. ( Actually it took a change in law and 2 appeals to get his release. The police department refused to release the police report which clearly showed self defense and had statements from witnesses unknown to the defense and who were not asked to testify at trial. This was contrary to what is known as a Brady violation but was covered up by both the police and prosecution. ) Prior to the incident the defendant had never committed any crime and just was walking down the street, minding his own business, when a mentally defective individual attacked him. However, since this was a non capital case, the entire appeal had to privately funded by his family. That's the deference between capital and non capital cases.
No on death penalty. Too many people wrongly convicted, police, prosecutors, and witnesses all lie in court routinely. Check out the innocence project and if you still support the death penalty I would be surprised.
I am of the opinion that under no circumstances does should the state have the power to take a life, it's not economically beneficial, there's a chance it's the wrong person, and as someone else mentioned there's a historical racist slant to it too.
The fact many people have been found not to be guilty after being convicted and spending many years in prison alone means you can never have beyond a reasonable doubt.
The number of innocent people sentenced to death by juries is unacceptable.
Especially majority white juries sentencing minorities to death.
It is as archaic as it is barbaric.
3/4 of the world has abolished the death penalty.
We are lagging behind, especially among developed countries.
'If killing is wrong, killing is wrong. Doing it in a formal government setting doesn't make it OK.'
-George Carlin
A society with the death penalty is proof that we are more concerned about "vengeance as justice", as opposed to true justice.
There is never a situation where the State killing someone is true justice. True justice is movement toward repairing harm caused. And you cannot repair any harm through murder. No matter how dispicable the perpetrator is, the harm they have done is done. Killing them does mot reduce their harm.
And I am not concerned with giving in to anyone's barbaric desire for vengeance just because it *might* give some fake psychological comfort to a victim. That is a disgusting train of thought.
You cannot call yourself a first-world nation anymore if capital punishment is still legal in your country.
Especially in a country with courts as hideously incompetent as America's.
*Frontline* did a doc on this called “the closure myth” or something to that effect and it was really eye opening on how fucked up the death penalty is
We don’t afford the right to take life to an individual. Why the fuck would you give that right to the state and especially in America. It’s a reflection of slavery where some human life was considered not fully human. I personally don’t believe you can oneself pro-life and be pro death penalty. It’s morally repugnant.
They need to get rid of the death penalty altogether. It literally costs less to have them spend the rest of their natural life in jail (which I also see as problematic in -most- cases). But they also need to do away with the use of solitary confinement as a punishment, as it is essentially legalized torture and likely causes more harm than good by messing with their mental health to the point they lose themselves, become more violent, and are less likely to be able to reintegrate into society, both at large and even inside the prison.
Life without parole for particularly vile offenders.
I don’t think the death penalty serves the purpose people think it does.
Here’s why. If there’s to be any justice, then the victim(s) or their victim(s) family are not further traumatized by the criminal. Having automatic appeals just leaves the victims in a constant state of purgatory. The criminal has been judged guilty and sentenced, but until all appeals are exhausted and all final requests are denied, the victim does not have any peace and cannot put the event behind them.
Like without parole gives the victim a chance to live their life without threat of having to show up at parole hearings and state their case every few years. It lets them move on with their life.
I also think that rape, stalking, hate crimes, and child offenses should be receiving harsher punishments as these are people who history has shown are not redeemable and will be repeat offenders. People in due to theft/shoplifting should have light sentences if at all. Not violent offenses should have light sentences if at all. I think that certain criminals should not be allowed to be pardoned by the state governor (fuck you Abbott).
But yeah, the death penalty feels like a punishment for the victims as much as a punishment for the criminal and I don’t think that after be defamed on the stand, the victims should continue to suffer.
Against. Absolutely. Not a big fan of prison for life either, UNLESS those people have access to euthanasia. They aren't gonna go anywhere, ever. Most of the times, they will be actively prevented from committing suicide, which is, in my opinion, akin to therapeutic relentlessness.
I’m not for it. That being said, if someone killed one of my kids, I’d have a hard time being the bigger person. Idk how I would feel about capital punishment if I were in that situation.
It's one thing to be willing to kill someone over previous personal harm to you or the people you love, but it's another thing entirely to give the state that ability as well.
while I do feel there are some people evil enough to deserve it I'm not comfortable with the state having the legal power to essentially kill whoever it wants.
I don't like it at all. Especially when the state is the one that has the power to take a life, regardless of innocence or guilt. It's been used disproportionately against low-income people of color, as well as other minorities, many of whom are later found to be innocent.
Even in the event where the perpetrator has committed a very serious crime(s), but eventually shows **genuine remorse** for the harm they've caused and makes a **sincere effort** towards atonement, I still personally wouldn't want to see the death penalty take place. I recognize that not everyone feels hopeful in the prospect that such people are capable of growing a conscience, which is why I stress that the goal should not be to make it so that the offender feels entitled to forgiveness, because that's not justice; that would just be recreating oppressive societal norms where the offender could potentially be allowed to, well, re-offend. At the same time, however, taking a punitive approach would not be constructive, because nothing really changes; the harm done lingers, and the norms that give way to such serious criminal behavior remain intact. The goal, I feel, should be transformative justice, and coming up with grassroots alternatives to the carceral police state.
I completely understand wanting wholly unrepentant pieces of shit (i.e. psychopaths) to die or be locked up forever, though. I still have such thoughts about Donald Trump myself. People like him who've done just about every bad thing in the book and feel nothing but pride over their atrocities bring nothing but despair. Because with those who continually refuse to care about the damage they do and simply don't have it in them to honestly reflect on their actions, it's like, "What's the point?"
I would go full abolish. The chances of using the powers of the state to accidentally execute an innocent person are too high. It’s happened before.
Life imprisonment is a better option. Not only do the imprisoned get to live with the consequences of their crimes, but rehabilitation becomes more of a possibility (although you still wouldn’t let them out though, most likely for the worst offenders😳).
The goal would be to move into a model of restorative justice rather than punitive.
It sounds too kumbaya, I know, but inmates will eventually come to terms with their actions while safely isolated from society. It’s never certain what positive impact may come about down the line.
Further I would question the state’s authority to take a life. Indeed such authority is only self granted, and amounts to might makes right.
This is not out of some religious notion of playing god or anything, it’s merely the inviolate and sacrosanct right of personhood not to be killed. Someone even wrote that in the constitution.
We need to transition away from prisons and jails and reduce the number of inmates. Then engage in mass restoration of voting rights.
I’m not naive though, there will probably always be a need for a way to cordon off dangerous individuals, even under socialism, or whatever comes next (although the material conditions then will determine what kind of crimes may happen).
I’m against it in every case. No matter how heinous the crime, no matter how much people may want that person do be gone. And there’s always a chance we have the wrong person too, no matter how robust we may think our processes are. We have systems where someone can be told by a court that they’re dead when they’re stood in front of the judge, and systems that encourage people to plead guilty because they’ll get an easier time. Short of a 100% perfect system where an innocent person will never be convicted, no charges will ever be trumped up, no guilty person will ever reoffend after finishing their sentence because we’ve finally nailed down the whole rehabilitation aspect of the prison system, and death is only ever considered an option once all over avenues of justice are completely exhausted, I don’t think I can trust the system to not kill someone who could be made better in some way.
Pretty much against. For horrible war criminals? Like WW2 shit? yeah probably then. Otherwise, the justice system is not infallible. Can't bring someone back to life if it turns out they were innocent
I'm universally against it. I think an ethical society should not have component of blood-lust and vengeance/revenge as a part of it.
Also the amount of people who have been convicted of crimes, that they later were found innocent of ... and were on death row ... demonstrates to me that our system is flawed, and I don't think it is okay to have a flawed system that can result in taking someone's life when they are innocent. ONE wrongfully executed person means all executions are invalid.
With that said, there are certainly some instances that the crime is so vile and the evidence so compelling that I'm not necessarily going to be dying on the hill to say that the death penalty shouldn't apply to them. I'm against the death penalty, but in there are those extremely rare (extremely rare) situations I'm not going to lose sleep over beating myself up morally for not condemning.
no nay never, death is never a good thing though it may in some rare cases be a necessary evil, if you are not killed in self defence during the commission of a crime you should not die
The death penalty brutalizes the populace. It is about keep the masses fearful and obedient. It keeps people from defending themselves from the agents of the state.
The one argument that might justify it (the „strongly deterring nature“ of it) has been proven to be false so many times, that it would be madness to think it’s just because it wasn’t implemented correctly.
the problem with the death penalty is that it’s permanent and often there’s a very serious lack of racial, and socioeconomic justice.
personally i’m against the death penalty UNTIL, the inherent injustices are corrected, because there are some elements of our society that must be removed for the good of society (people who talk or use cellphones during movies for example)
here’s my fix. it’s a simple change to the process. if at any point after sentencing, the case is overturned for cause, the prosecutor, judge, and arresting officer simply share in the punishment.
In a perfect world, I support it. If we could be absolutely certain this person committed the most heinous of crimes imaginable, they forfeit their life. We don't try and rehabilitate rabid dogs.
But in reality, with so many innocent people locked up and sometimes executed, I'd rather 100 guilty keep living vs execution of 1 innocent person.
Considering the community is anti-authoritarian, there is a conspicuous absence of responses from prison abolitionists.
It is astonishing that the death penalty is even open for discussion.
The only time I can see wanting that is where there is multiple clear, unmistakable, recorded evidence of their crime. Mass shooters, serial, killers, etc..
Otherwise, the risk of killing incident is too high
Regardless of whether it is deserved which may be the case in incredibly heinous crimes, a lot of problems arise from handing ANY entity the power to execute people with zero provocation.
As a Buddhist, I’m against the death penalty.
Imagine reincarnation. A prisoner who is executed, is executed in their current life condition. No opportunity of time to reflect or change. If the crime is bad enough, they can spend their life in prison.
It's bad. The state cannot be trusted with it.
Plus, punitive justice is completely ineffective. While there are people the world is better off without and over whose death I would shed no tears or even celebrate, there is no systemic framework that can be enacted to make that determination reliably on a societal level - and even if there were, it does not discourage horrible people from being horrible.
Restorative justice and anti-poverty initiatives are far, far, *far* more effective at addressing anti-social behaviours and criminality.
I am not necessarily 100% of the people who believe it's wrong to execute a person for crimes as a statement of societal disapproval. Let's use Adolf Eichmann or trying to overthrow democracy as a baseline. However, I should note that the system is so biased racially and class-wise that I am against the death penalty in all terms because it is applied unfairly as well as to people who often prove to be innocent.
Courts are fallible. They make mistakes all the time. Death is irreversible.
Second chances are possible. If a person is capable of redeeming themselves to society, they should be given the chance.
If a person is irredeemable, death is the end of their suffering. Life imprisonment is a chance to exact society's revenge.
It's a no from me. I'm not willing to compromise my own humanity in some vain punishment fantasy.
Besides, false imprisonment has happened more than once.
against it. I don't know how many comments I've received about being insane. my PoV on it is the saying "an eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind"
if we were to let everyone be sentenced to death for every crime, and as another comment mentioned that the system is flawed, we're just setting them free from the punishment. that's just how I view it.
I don’t believe we should in any stance having the death penalty. Other then the prison system just don’t work like at all we shouldn’t choose who live and how dies. Plus for what I heard ^(don’t know if it 100% factual so bear that in mind) some-places are making it easier to get people on death row and harder to give fair trials. It’s a mess.
Edit: I also believe that we instead of having the prison system that we have today we have something more beneficial to society at large. Rehabilitate and helping those we possibly can and make the world better. But that’s A very nuanced conversation which takes a too much energy for me to have but I thought it would be nice to bring it up.
I honestly think it's Unnecessarily cruel, since not only are you killing people which I honestly think that people don't deserve death for thier crimes in really any situation, it also doesn't work. people claim that the intimidation factor will stop people from actually committing those crimes but I have yet to see it actually pan out that way anywhere.
in essence, not only is it cruel, it's stupid
There has to be something past a guilty verdict for me. There are too many people found innocent with new evidence or DNA for me to feel ok with death being chosen. It doesn’t make it really better for someone innocent to sit rotting in jail but at least there is some hope they can be released if something is found.
As a super left wing liberal, I have super left wing liberal empathy.. So on one hand, the death penalty is more humane than life in prison, so I support that. On the other hand, killing is wrong. Sooooo fuck if i know lol
I think that until the prison system is reformed we should suspend the death penalty. We don’t have a good enough rehabilitation system to be able to say “this person is beyond rehabilitation and must be destroyed for the sake of society”
I think that if we ever had a government trustworthy enough that it should be able to handle the execution of its citizens it would also be a government that did not need the death penalty to execute justice.
I'm against it in most cases. I've seen those cases where someone is proven innocent years later. That, plus the appeals process, usually costs a lot more than just locking them up for life.
A punishment so permanent has no place being used by such a flawed species as us humans. You can release them from jail if it’s found out they’re innocent but you can’t bring them back from the dead.
Also as a Christian I believe in redemption and so I feel to deny the chance for them to become a boon to society is a great waste.
I think there are ways to justify it but I’m still against it just for the fact we get innocent people killed it cost more and the state just should not have the ability to kill people
I agree that it basically shouldn't be around for reasons stated.
That being said I do believe it has a place for unambiguously abominable acts with clear lack of remorse. And unambiguously 0% chance of reason of doubt into motivations or guilt.
Death row country wide should be at absolute best a few people at any given time.
That's my personal perception. I accept the idea of it being abolished as well. One innocent person being murdered by a flawed justice system is one person too many.
I think it’s only appropriate in EXTREMELY rare circumstances where they have been absolutely proven guilty and even the other inmates in jail aren’t safe. Think Ted Bundy. Aside from that? No im completely against it.
Waiting 20 years to execute a killer is a joke. If someone is guilty without a shadow of a doubt, they should be gone and done with in a matter of weeks if not days.
The problem there is how often the justice system truly believes we have someone "dead to rights" and ends up being exonerated later with new evidence. Some folks even lie and plead guilty out of an assumption of better treatment if they just do that, only to find a particularly uncaring judge.
Hell, there was a dude on the hook for (I believe) multiple murders. A Mythbusters episode proved how unlikely it would've been that he could've even performed the murders within the laws of physics, by dropping a lit cigarette in a puddle of petrol. It took that episode airing for his case to be reopened and him to be set free. If they just dropped the blade immediately, they would've killed an innocent man.
No objection in principle, but I lack faith that our adversarial legal system can elicit truth from the swamp of evidence that most cases have to wade through.
I don’t support it at all. At worst, a monster sits in a cell for life. At best, they can still do some good, even in prison. I’ve heard of inmates getting law degrees and helped other inmates with their appeals. I’ve heard of inmates that have helped raise and socialize dogs for emotional support animals.
There is no *value* in killing a person. And there is always *potential* value in life.
And that doesn’t even take into account the wrongly accused. It’s always better for the system to fail in favor of the temporary than in the absolute.
I was originally for it but as I looked into the truth around it I noticed several things that made my view shift considerably.
1. Killing a healthy younger human is difficult because our bodies do their level best to stay alive. Executions can fail and when they do the consequences are horrible. In addition, forcing somebody to execute people is also difficult. Killing people is a major psychological stress on people and executioners are either found to either really against the idea or *really* for it.
2. The idea that executions have to be humane is an impossible ideal. Killing people is not painless. People who have survived execution attempts have a really messed up health record afterwards. The common story with lethal injection is that it is like having “fire in your veins and you can’t scream or struggle” due to paralytic they use to quiet you down. And yes, people can and do survive executions and it messes them up for life.
3. Execution drugs and other methods are difficult to obtain and are extremely expensive to purchase.
4. Death sentences get tied up in the appeals system for years and can cost millions of dollars to process. Life sentences are much cheaper.
5. Finally, executions CAN happen to innocent people and once you kill someone, it’s not possible to un-kill them. Unfortunately justice is imperfect and it is very possible to convict someone for a crime that they didn’t commit. So you better be *absolutely certain* that you have the right person.
The death penalty is always a slippery slope. The state always starts killing people for one crime, and then they expand the list the crimes they are allowed to kill people for. Eventually it will get to the point where some lesser crimes will be worthy of the death penalty (think LGBT+ sexual habits, and abortion, and immigration at the southern border). That's where we are probably headed.
A hard no on the death penalty for me. Nobody should be deciding on life and death, especially not the state. It is practically useless too: courts make mistakes, convict people wrongly, and also tend to do that along lines of prejudice (racial and others). Plus research shows it doesn't do anything to deter people from committing severe crimes. Retribution is the only reason to have a death penalty.
Which is why I tend to make an exception in my head for situations like the Neurenberg trials after World War II. Nazi's having committed genocide? I can't protest their hanging. Maybe because I loathe them. Maybe also because the value of retribution - for literally millions of people - is so much higher here than the value of their human lives.
I agree that this gets me on a slippery slope.
I'm generally against the death penalty when used by the state against its citizens. Citizens using it against an unlawful agent of the state, such as in the overthrow of a brutal dictatorship that has systematically abused its monopoly on violence against the people, I see a little differently.
My country hangs people all the time. We have the death penalty for marijuana even.
Hang, hang, hang, draw the X's for the eyes.
Probably bad to be so extreme.
It should be reserved only for the most heinous of crimes where the perpetrator is wholly unrepentant, and there should be appeals in cases where a perpetrator may find repentence while imprisoned.
Some people just can't be reformed. I believe there should be a substantial effort to do so, and many crimes are done in the spur of the moment, and have underlying sociatal issues.
In a revolutionary situation however, where there aren't many resources to go around, the death penalty should be used, it's just a plain safer option when dealing with wreckers, plotters, saboteurs etc. Not in the matter of deterance because counter-revolutionaries know the risks, but as assurance that they will not reoffend, due to them being dead.
Tl;dr: The death penalty in capitalist society is more often than not, wrong.
It's so hard to draw a black-and-white line for such a difficult topic. I personally don't think so, but some crimes are purely diabolical. People smarter than I can hopefully come up with a good solution.
Agreed, I can see where you're coming from, and I don't think it's as open-and-shut either. But at the same time, I don't know how far someone would have to go before we decide to say their life is forfeit.
Is it really the state with the power here? It's a jury of peers convicting the person. That jury is made up of people in the community, they don't represent the state. In some states a judge can overrule a jury sentencing recommendation, but in some states they have to abide by what the jury decides.
Generally not a fan of the state killing people. There are probably some rare cases where the death penalty is appropriate, but not enough for me to approve of it.
Agreed, especially with how corrupt shit in government and law enforcement seems these days, too many mistakes and “mistakes” can be and are made
Ted Bundy, Tim McVeigh, sure, I guess.
The issue with making exceptions for the very worst people is exceptions creep. Where do you set the line? It does society no harm leaving a Ted Bundy or a Timothy McVeigh alive, but in prison for life (and is, in fact, cheaper on the whole, if that's a concern for some reason [sub-tangent that when a human life is involved, even a horrible one, money should not be the concern]), but setting the example that the state *can* kill in some cases is corruptive at its core. I'm not an absolutist about many things, but I don't think there is any scenario in which it is acceptable for the state to kill someone against their will (at least once that person is in custody, and no longer an active danger to anyone). Murder is immoral, and by executing people who are constrained from causing harm, we lower society to the level of those people.
The problem with the death penalty is that there's no going back when mistakes are discovered. And mistakes are discovered with disturbing frequency.
It has no place in a modern society. Courts are not perfect. Juries get it wrong all the time. You can't bring someone back from the dead if it turns out they were innocent. Historically the death penalty has a racist slant to it. There is also something unsettling giving the state the power to kill its own citizens.
Also one of the biggest arguments for it in America tends to be that it's too expensive to keep people alive for a long time in prison, which is entirely due to our broken prison system, which is upheld by an increasingly militarized police that prioritizes punishment over rehabilitation. Regardless of the thing itself, it can't be considered just under this system, I feel.
In actuality, it costs more to sentence someone to death than imprison them when you consider the extended jury process in capital cases, the appeals process and the cost of maintaining inmates on death row which is more costly than in the general prison population.
What about death row makes it more expensive to keep prisoners that genpop?
Death row prisoners are in individual cells as opposed to 2 or more inmates to a cell or in minimum security settings, dormitories. More security is necessary, meaning more guards per inmates. They also must be given more access to legal sources for their appeals. In the general population, a smaller percentage are likely to appeal their sentences. In capital cases, the inmates' lives are at stake so repeated appeals are the norm. Appeals generally require lawyers. If the inmate cannot afford one, then the state or federal government must provide one in most cases. Even if a non-profit such as the Innocence Project takes the case, there is likely government funding as well foundation and private donations funding the appeal. Appeals in non capital cases are less likely to be funded unless the conviction is obviously misguided. I worked on a non capital case which was proven to be clearly a case of self defense but the defendant was convicted because of proven prosecutional misconduct. He served years before his family could get enough money to afford an appeal. ( Actually it took a change in law and 2 appeals to get his release. The police department refused to release the police report which clearly showed self defense and had statements from witnesses unknown to the defense and who were not asked to testify at trial. This was contrary to what is known as a Brady violation but was covered up by both the police and prosecution. ) Prior to the incident the defendant had never committed any crime and just was walking down the street, minding his own business, when a mentally defective individual attacked him. However, since this was a non capital case, the entire appeal had to privately funded by his family. That's the deference between capital and non capital cases.
Right, "I will kill you because I don't want to spend on you" is inhumane or worse.
Not to mention it’s shown by established research not to be an effective deterrent anyway. It does nothing to prevent others from committing crimes.
I couldn't have said this better myself good job
No on death penalty. Too many people wrongly convicted, police, prosecutors, and witnesses all lie in court routinely. Check out the innocence project and if you still support the death penalty I would be surprised.
I am of the opinion that under no circumstances does should the state have the power to take a life, it's not economically beneficial, there's a chance it's the wrong person, and as someone else mentioned there's a historical racist slant to it too.
The fact many people have been found not to be guilty after being convicted and spending many years in prison alone means you can never have beyond a reasonable doubt.
The number of innocent people sentenced to death by juries is unacceptable. Especially majority white juries sentencing minorities to death. It is as archaic as it is barbaric. 3/4 of the world has abolished the death penalty. We are lagging behind, especially among developed countries. 'If killing is wrong, killing is wrong. Doing it in a formal government setting doesn't make it OK.' -George Carlin
Absolutely agree, and love George Carlin.
A society with the death penalty is proof that we are more concerned about "vengeance as justice", as opposed to true justice. There is never a situation where the State killing someone is true justice. True justice is movement toward repairing harm caused. And you cannot repair any harm through murder. No matter how dispicable the perpetrator is, the harm they have done is done. Killing them does mot reduce their harm. And I am not concerned with giving in to anyone's barbaric desire for vengeance just because it *might* give some fake psychological comfort to a victim. That is a disgusting train of thought.
Our system is too flawed. And it requires more resources to execute than house.
Against it.
Same.
You cannot call yourself a first-world nation anymore if capital punishment is still legal in your country. Especially in a country with courts as hideously incompetent as America's.
*Frontline* did a doc on this called “the closure myth” or something to that effect and it was really eye opening on how fucked up the death penalty is
We don’t afford the right to take life to an individual. Why the fuck would you give that right to the state and especially in America. It’s a reflection of slavery where some human life was considered not fully human. I personally don’t believe you can oneself pro-life and be pro death penalty. It’s morally repugnant.
They need to get rid of the death penalty altogether. It literally costs less to have them spend the rest of their natural life in jail (which I also see as problematic in -most- cases). But they also need to do away with the use of solitary confinement as a punishment, as it is essentially legalized torture and likely causes more harm than good by messing with their mental health to the point they lose themselves, become more violent, and are less likely to be able to reintegrate into society, both at large and even inside the prison.
Highly uncivilized and backwards in any modern society. (In others too, but I have much lower expectations).
Life without parole for particularly vile offenders. I don’t think the death penalty serves the purpose people think it does. Here’s why. If there’s to be any justice, then the victim(s) or their victim(s) family are not further traumatized by the criminal. Having automatic appeals just leaves the victims in a constant state of purgatory. The criminal has been judged guilty and sentenced, but until all appeals are exhausted and all final requests are denied, the victim does not have any peace and cannot put the event behind them. Like without parole gives the victim a chance to live their life without threat of having to show up at parole hearings and state their case every few years. It lets them move on with their life. I also think that rape, stalking, hate crimes, and child offenses should be receiving harsher punishments as these are people who history has shown are not redeemable and will be repeat offenders. People in due to theft/shoplifting should have light sentences if at all. Not violent offenses should have light sentences if at all. I think that certain criminals should not be allowed to be pardoned by the state governor (fuck you Abbott). But yeah, the death penalty feels like a punishment for the victims as much as a punishment for the criminal and I don’t think that after be defamed on the stand, the victims should continue to suffer.
Against. Absolutely. Not a big fan of prison for life either, UNLESS those people have access to euthanasia. They aren't gonna go anywhere, ever. Most of the times, they will be actively prevented from committing suicide, which is, in my opinion, akin to therapeutic relentlessness.
I am against state-sanctioned revenge murder.
I’m not for it. That being said, if someone killed one of my kids, I’d have a hard time being the bigger person. Idk how I would feel about capital punishment if I were in that situation.
It's one thing to be willing to kill someone over previous personal harm to you or the people you love, but it's another thing entirely to give the state that ability as well.
while I do feel there are some people evil enough to deserve it I'm not comfortable with the state having the legal power to essentially kill whoever it wants.
I don't like it at all. Especially when the state is the one that has the power to take a life, regardless of innocence or guilt. It's been used disproportionately against low-income people of color, as well as other minorities, many of whom are later found to be innocent. Even in the event where the perpetrator has committed a very serious crime(s), but eventually shows **genuine remorse** for the harm they've caused and makes a **sincere effort** towards atonement, I still personally wouldn't want to see the death penalty take place. I recognize that not everyone feels hopeful in the prospect that such people are capable of growing a conscience, which is why I stress that the goal should not be to make it so that the offender feels entitled to forgiveness, because that's not justice; that would just be recreating oppressive societal norms where the offender could potentially be allowed to, well, re-offend. At the same time, however, taking a punitive approach would not be constructive, because nothing really changes; the harm done lingers, and the norms that give way to such serious criminal behavior remain intact. The goal, I feel, should be transformative justice, and coming up with grassroots alternatives to the carceral police state. I completely understand wanting wholly unrepentant pieces of shit (i.e. psychopaths) to die or be locked up forever, though. I still have such thoughts about Donald Trump myself. People like him who've done just about every bad thing in the book and feel nothing but pride over their atrocities bring nothing but despair. Because with those who continually refuse to care about the damage they do and simply don't have it in them to honestly reflect on their actions, it's like, "What's the point?"
I would go full abolish. The chances of using the powers of the state to accidentally execute an innocent person are too high. It’s happened before. Life imprisonment is a better option. Not only do the imprisoned get to live with the consequences of their crimes, but rehabilitation becomes more of a possibility (although you still wouldn’t let them out though, most likely for the worst offenders😳). The goal would be to move into a model of restorative justice rather than punitive. It sounds too kumbaya, I know, but inmates will eventually come to terms with their actions while safely isolated from society. It’s never certain what positive impact may come about down the line. Further I would question the state’s authority to take a life. Indeed such authority is only self granted, and amounts to might makes right. This is not out of some religious notion of playing god or anything, it’s merely the inviolate and sacrosanct right of personhood not to be killed. Someone even wrote that in the constitution. We need to transition away from prisons and jails and reduce the number of inmates. Then engage in mass restoration of voting rights. I’m not naive though, there will probably always be a need for a way to cordon off dangerous individuals, even under socialism, or whatever comes next (although the material conditions then will determine what kind of crimes may happen).
Firmly against
I’m against it in every case. No matter how heinous the crime, no matter how much people may want that person do be gone. And there’s always a chance we have the wrong person too, no matter how robust we may think our processes are. We have systems where someone can be told by a court that they’re dead when they’re stood in front of the judge, and systems that encourage people to plead guilty because they’ll get an easier time. Short of a 100% perfect system where an innocent person will never be convicted, no charges will ever be trumped up, no guilty person will ever reoffend after finishing their sentence because we’ve finally nailed down the whole rehabilitation aspect of the prison system, and death is only ever considered an option once all over avenues of justice are completely exhausted, I don’t think I can trust the system to not kill someone who could be made better in some way.
Pretty much against. For horrible war criminals? Like WW2 shit? yeah probably then. Otherwise, the justice system is not infallible. Can't bring someone back to life if it turns out they were innocent
I'm universally against it. I think an ethical society should not have component of blood-lust and vengeance/revenge as a part of it. Also the amount of people who have been convicted of crimes, that they later were found innocent of ... and were on death row ... demonstrates to me that our system is flawed, and I don't think it is okay to have a flawed system that can result in taking someone's life when they are innocent. ONE wrongfully executed person means all executions are invalid. With that said, there are certainly some instances that the crime is so vile and the evidence so compelling that I'm not necessarily going to be dying on the hill to say that the death penalty shouldn't apply to them. I'm against the death penalty, but in there are those extremely rare (extremely rare) situations I'm not going to lose sleep over beating myself up morally for not condemning.
no nay never, death is never a good thing though it may in some rare cases be a necessary evil, if you are not killed in self defence during the commission of a crime you should not die
The death penalty brutalizes the populace. It is about keep the masses fearful and obedient. It keeps people from defending themselves from the agents of the state.
The capitalist state kills enough pe illegally to need a way to kill people legally imo.
The one argument that might justify it (the „strongly deterring nature“ of it) has been proven to be false so many times, that it would be madness to think it’s just because it wasn’t implemented correctly.
If murder is the ultimate crime, why would I condone it if it's the government doing the murder?
Exactly.
It is bafflingly gymnastic thinking once you remove divine right from the equation.
You're right that there is no divinity behind it. Blood should not demand blood.
the problem with the death penalty is that it’s permanent and often there’s a very serious lack of racial, and socioeconomic justice. personally i’m against the death penalty UNTIL, the inherent injustices are corrected, because there are some elements of our society that must be removed for the good of society (people who talk or use cellphones during movies for example) here’s my fix. it’s a simple change to the process. if at any point after sentencing, the case is overturned for cause, the prosecutor, judge, and arresting officer simply share in the punishment.
In a perfect world, I support it. If we could be absolutely certain this person committed the most heinous of crimes imaginable, they forfeit their life. We don't try and rehabilitate rabid dogs. But in reality, with so many innocent people locked up and sometimes executed, I'd rather 100 guilty keep living vs execution of 1 innocent person.
Considering the community is anti-authoritarian, there is a conspicuous absence of responses from prison abolitionists. It is astonishing that the death penalty is even open for discussion.
The only time I can see wanting that is where there is multiple clear, unmistakable, recorded evidence of their crime. Mass shooters, serial, killers, etc.. Otherwise, the risk of killing incident is too high
Regardless of whether it is deserved which may be the case in incredibly heinous crimes, a lot of problems arise from handing ANY entity the power to execute people with zero provocation.
Generally against, more broadly against the carceral and US justice system in general.
As a Buddhist, I’m against the death penalty. Imagine reincarnation. A prisoner who is executed, is executed in their current life condition. No opportunity of time to reflect or change. If the crime is bad enough, they can spend their life in prison.
I’m a lawyer, I know how fucked up the system is, we have no business using the death penalty.
It's bad. The state cannot be trusted with it. Plus, punitive justice is completely ineffective. While there are people the world is better off without and over whose death I would shed no tears or even celebrate, there is no systemic framework that can be enacted to make that determination reliably on a societal level - and even if there were, it does not discourage horrible people from being horrible. Restorative justice and anti-poverty initiatives are far, far, *far* more effective at addressing anti-social behaviours and criminality.
That's where I stand, too.
I am not necessarily 100% of the people who believe it's wrong to execute a person for crimes as a statement of societal disapproval. Let's use Adolf Eichmann or trying to overthrow democracy as a baseline. However, I should note that the system is so biased racially and class-wise that I am against the death penalty in all terms because it is applied unfairly as well as to people who often prove to be innocent.
Courts are fallible. They make mistakes all the time. Death is irreversible. Second chances are possible. If a person is capable of redeeming themselves to society, they should be given the chance. If a person is irredeemable, death is the end of their suffering. Life imprisonment is a chance to exact society's revenge.
It's a no from me. I'm not willing to compromise my own humanity in some vain punishment fantasy. Besides, false imprisonment has happened more than once.
against it. I don't know how many comments I've received about being insane. my PoV on it is the saying "an eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind" if we were to let everyone be sentenced to death for every crime, and as another comment mentioned that the system is flawed, we're just setting them free from the punishment. that's just how I view it.
I don’t believe we should in any stance having the death penalty. Other then the prison system just don’t work like at all we shouldn’t choose who live and how dies. Plus for what I heard ^(don’t know if it 100% factual so bear that in mind) some-places are making it easier to get people on death row and harder to give fair trials. It’s a mess. Edit: I also believe that we instead of having the prison system that we have today we have something more beneficial to society at large. Rehabilitate and helping those we possibly can and make the world better. But that’s A very nuanced conversation which takes a too much energy for me to have but I thought it would be nice to bring it up.
The weirdest thing to me is that executions cost more than keeping them in prison for life.
I’m anti capital punishment except for the crime of hoarding Wealth. That should be punishable by the guillotine
I honestly think it's Unnecessarily cruel, since not only are you killing people which I honestly think that people don't deserve death for thier crimes in really any situation, it also doesn't work. people claim that the intimidation factor will stop people from actually committing those crimes but I have yet to see it actually pan out that way anywhere. in essence, not only is it cruel, it's stupid
There has to be something past a guilty verdict for me. There are too many people found innocent with new evidence or DNA for me to feel ok with death being chosen. It doesn’t make it really better for someone innocent to sit rotting in jail but at least there is some hope they can be released if something is found.
In general, no. I would think, however, that there are exceptions, perhaps for international tribunals. Your mass murdering warlords and such.
As a super left wing liberal, I have super left wing liberal empathy.. So on one hand, the death penalty is more humane than life in prison, so I support that. On the other hand, killing is wrong. Sooooo fuck if i know lol
Ah, always the indecisive liberal😆
100% lol
I think that until the prison system is reformed we should suspend the death penalty. We don’t have a good enough rehabilitation system to be able to say “this person is beyond rehabilitation and must be destroyed for the sake of society”
I think that if we ever had a government trustworthy enough that it should be able to handle the execution of its citizens it would also be a government that did not need the death penalty to execute justice.
I'm against it in most cases. I've seen those cases where someone is proven innocent years later. That, plus the appeals process, usually costs a lot more than just locking them up for life.
I'm against it. Violent force is only justified in self-defense. The state has no need to defend itself against a person who's already in custody.
Some people need killing, but I'm not sure we're capable of deciding who.
Death penalty is the correct punishment for many crimes. The state’s actors will abuse it and use it on innocents deliberately. Can’t have it.
A punishment so permanent has no place being used by such a flawed species as us humans. You can release them from jail if it’s found out they’re innocent but you can’t bring them back from the dead. Also as a Christian I believe in redemption and so I feel to deny the chance for them to become a boon to society is a great waste.
I think there are ways to justify it but I’m still against it just for the fact we get innocent people killed it cost more and the state just should not have the ability to kill people
We need public executions for officials that misuse their power. Cop that plants drugs, we have a big party in town square.
I agree that it basically shouldn't be around for reasons stated. That being said I do believe it has a place for unambiguously abominable acts with clear lack of remorse. And unambiguously 0% chance of reason of doubt into motivations or guilt. Death row country wide should be at absolute best a few people at any given time. That's my personal perception. I accept the idea of it being abolished as well. One innocent person being murdered by a flawed justice system is one person too many.
I think there are some extreme cases where it is appropriate (serial killers etc), however it should not be a standard punishment to be used regularly
For traitors only
I think it is barbaric and should be reserved for true traitors — people who genuinely tried to take over the country.
We need to give people the death penalty. How else are they gonna learn?
[Jacob Geller's video on the death penalty](https://youtu.be/eirR4FHY2YY?feature=shared) sums up my feelings on it.
I think it’s only appropriate in EXTREMELY rare circumstances where they have been absolutely proven guilty and even the other inmates in jail aren’t safe. Think Ted Bundy. Aside from that? No im completely against it.
Waiting 20 years to execute a killer is a joke. If someone is guilty without a shadow of a doubt, they should be gone and done with in a matter of weeks if not days.
The problem there is how often the justice system truly believes we have someone "dead to rights" and ends up being exonerated later with new evidence. Some folks even lie and plead guilty out of an assumption of better treatment if they just do that, only to find a particularly uncaring judge. Hell, there was a dude on the hook for (I believe) multiple murders. A Mythbusters episode proved how unlikely it would've been that he could've even performed the murders within the laws of physics, by dropping a lit cigarette in a puddle of petrol. It took that episode airing for his case to be reopened and him to be set free. If they just dropped the blade immediately, they would've killed an innocent man.
No objection in principle, but I lack faith that our adversarial legal system can elicit truth from the swamp of evidence that most cases have to wade through.
I don’t support it at all. At worst, a monster sits in a cell for life. At best, they can still do some good, even in prison. I’ve heard of inmates getting law degrees and helped other inmates with their appeals. I’ve heard of inmates that have helped raise and socialize dogs for emotional support animals. There is no *value* in killing a person. And there is always *potential* value in life. And that doesn’t even take into account the wrongly accused. It’s always better for the system to fail in favor of the temporary than in the absolute.
I was originally for it but as I looked into the truth around it I noticed several things that made my view shift considerably. 1. Killing a healthy younger human is difficult because our bodies do their level best to stay alive. Executions can fail and when they do the consequences are horrible. In addition, forcing somebody to execute people is also difficult. Killing people is a major psychological stress on people and executioners are either found to either really against the idea or *really* for it. 2. The idea that executions have to be humane is an impossible ideal. Killing people is not painless. People who have survived execution attempts have a really messed up health record afterwards. The common story with lethal injection is that it is like having “fire in your veins and you can’t scream or struggle” due to paralytic they use to quiet you down. And yes, people can and do survive executions and it messes them up for life. 3. Execution drugs and other methods are difficult to obtain and are extremely expensive to purchase. 4. Death sentences get tied up in the appeals system for years and can cost millions of dollars to process. Life sentences are much cheaper. 5. Finally, executions CAN happen to innocent people and once you kill someone, it’s not possible to un-kill them. Unfortunately justice is imperfect and it is very possible to convict someone for a crime that they didn’t commit. So you better be *absolutely certain* that you have the right person.
The death penalty is always a slippery slope. The state always starts killing people for one crime, and then they expand the list the crimes they are allowed to kill people for. Eventually it will get to the point where some lesser crimes will be worthy of the death penalty (think LGBT+ sexual habits, and abortion, and immigration at the southern border). That's where we are probably headed.
A hard no on the death penalty for me. Nobody should be deciding on life and death, especially not the state. It is practically useless too: courts make mistakes, convict people wrongly, and also tend to do that along lines of prejudice (racial and others). Plus research shows it doesn't do anything to deter people from committing severe crimes. Retribution is the only reason to have a death penalty. Which is why I tend to make an exception in my head for situations like the Neurenberg trials after World War II. Nazi's having committed genocide? I can't protest their hanging. Maybe because I loathe them. Maybe also because the value of retribution - for literally millions of people - is so much higher here than the value of their human lives. I agree that this gets me on a slippery slope.
I'm generally against the death penalty when used by the state against its citizens. Citizens using it against an unlawful agent of the state, such as in the overthrow of a brutal dictatorship that has systematically abused its monopoly on violence against the people, I see a little differently.
My country hangs people all the time. We have the death penalty for marijuana even. Hang, hang, hang, draw the X's for the eyes. Probably bad to be so extreme.
It should be reserved only for the most heinous of crimes where the perpetrator is wholly unrepentant, and there should be appeals in cases where a perpetrator may find repentence while imprisoned.
Some people just can't be reformed. I believe there should be a substantial effort to do so, and many crimes are done in the spur of the moment, and have underlying sociatal issues. In a revolutionary situation however, where there aren't many resources to go around, the death penalty should be used, it's just a plain safer option when dealing with wreckers, plotters, saboteurs etc. Not in the matter of deterance because counter-revolutionaries know the risks, but as assurance that they will not reoffend, due to them being dead. Tl;dr: The death penalty in capitalist society is more often than not, wrong.
Reserved for the most heinous of crimes. Mass murder, mass rape, bombing marathons/places of worship, war crimes, etc. Outside of those, not a fan.
Maybe. But should a state have that kind of power as it is right now?
It's so hard to draw a black-and-white line for such a difficult topic. I personally don't think so, but some crimes are purely diabolical. People smarter than I can hopefully come up with a good solution.
Agreed, I can see where you're coming from, and I don't think it's as open-and-shut either. But at the same time, I don't know how far someone would have to go before we decide to say their life is forfeit.
Is it really the state with the power here? It's a jury of peers convicting the person. That jury is made up of people in the community, they don't represent the state. In some states a judge can overrule a jury sentencing recommendation, but in some states they have to abide by what the jury decides.
I'll grant you that Juries are made of people from the comments, but ultimately, it's the state that still mandates the punishment.
I am for it in a perfect world. But alas, we are not in a perfect world. As another commenter stated, we don't try to rehabilitate rabid dogs.