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A new spin on capital punishment.

Discussion in 'Archive: The Senate Floor' started by JediMasterRevan, Jan 30, 2005.

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  1. JediMasterRevan

    JediMasterRevan Jedi Youngling star 4

    Registered:
    May 18, 2004
    I am sure this topic has been discussed repeatedly here but I thought I might try and add a new spin to it. The constitution states that everyone has three unalienable rights: life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness right? Well isn't capital punishment taking away that persons right to life? I just thought I might throw that out there.
     
  2. farraday

    farraday Jedi Knight star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness


    Stirring words that will ring down through history for centuries still.

    But they come from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution.
     
  3. Jansons_Funny_Twin

    Jansons_Funny_Twin Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 31, 2002
    The Constitution says that no one will be deprived of Life, Liberty, or Property without due process of the law. So, going through the due process of a trial, the government can, indeed, deprive people of Life (death penalty), Liberty (being incarcerated), or Property (garnering wages).




    Thermal Expansion!
     
  4. cal_silverstar

    cal_silverstar Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 15, 2002
    Certain rights are taken away when an individual commits the crime of murder.
     
  5. Crix-Madine

    Crix-Madine Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 7, 2000
    not really on topic
     
  6. Bubba_the_Genius

    Bubba_the_Genius Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 2002
    That's right, America's a police state. Or do people like you spell it "Amerika"?

    For the love of all things holy, Crix, must every time you post on the Senate Floor be some sort of less-than-clever attempt to criticize the United States or its current administration?
     
  7. Obi-Wan McCartney

    Obi-Wan McCartney Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Aug 17, 1999
    Uh, he's just fighting against capital punishment.

    Besides, Bubba, if you weren't fueled with rage with leftists you could have used his argument to support the idea that abortion is wrong.

    Or tell me, when you criticize abortion's legality, are you too being anti-american and unpatriotic?

    What did his post have to with the PResident? I'M sick of this 'my way or the highway' attitude red-staters have.
     
  8. Mr44

    Mr44 VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 21, 2002
    Except OWM, had you read the comment, you'd recognize that it had nothing to do with this topic.

    That's why it was edited, not because it was criticizing any one point of view.
     
  9. Branthoris

    Branthoris Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2002
    At the time, it clearly was believed that the Constitution authorised capital punishment:

    "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury..." Amdt. 5 (emphasis added)
    This textual evidence, and other historical evidence, establishes that neither the Due Process Clause, nor the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause were understood, when adopted, to prohibit the death penalty.

    It seems most unlikely that the Declaration of Independence was, either (any more than its reference to "liberty" proscribes imprisonment), although the use of the word "inalienable" (which suggests 'unconditional') is indeed curious.
     
  10. Bubba_the_Genius

    Bubba_the_Genius Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 19, 2002
    The question is, if the government can't possibly infringe on either life or liberty, how else is it supposed to "secure these rights"?

    "...to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
     
  11. farraday

    farraday Jedi Knight star 7

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2000
    Lack of understanding of natural law is probably the root of confusion here.

    Natural law proponents argue that humans by their existence are inherently prone to order. The entire point behind the arguement is there is a fundamental order and that infringing on that order is against natural law and thus wrong.

    Merely sayign you have a right to live does not according to antural law say you have a right to do whatever you want. The argument more accurately is you have the right to live according to natural law. Attempting to subvert, destroy, or corrupt natural law opens you to the subsequent penalities thereof.
     
  12. Devilanse

    Devilanse Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    May 11, 2002
    Well isn't capital punishment taking away that persons right to life? I just thought I might throw that out there.

    Wouldn't kidnapping someone. raping them, shooting them, and then dumping the body on the highway be depriving that person of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?

    Don't do the crime if you aren't prepared for the punishment due.

    I don't have a problem with capital punishment, unless they are executing an innocent person. Before the state should sentence death....it had better have a smoking gun, and enough evidence to plug up the Mississippi. (sp?)



     
  13. Pelranius

    Pelranius Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 25, 2003
    The state should at least take the trouble of knowing its the right person (otherwise they will have to at least say sorry to the family and go through the hassle of finding the real prepertrator)

    I'm still trying to determine if being executed by lethal injection or spending the rest of your life in isolation at a maximum security prison is worse?
     
  14. One_Sith_Knight

    One_Sith_Knight Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2004
    Spending life imprisonment in isolation is worse than the death penalty, but it costs a lot of money to keep a person alive for 25+ years.
     
  15. GrandAdmiralPelleaon

    GrandAdmiralPelleaon Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2000
    Spending life imprisonment in isolation is worse than the death penalty, but it costs a lot of money to keep a person alive for 25+ years.

    Studies have shown it costs even more money to execute someone.
     
  16. One_Sith_Knight

    One_Sith_Knight Jedi Youngling star 1

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    Nov 10, 2004
    Curious how it can cost more than food for 25 years. Also there is the internet, tv, books, upkeep of jail.
     
  17. GrandAdmiralPelleaon

    GrandAdmiralPelleaon Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2000
    Trial costs.

    The most comprehensive death penalty study in the country found that the death penalty costs North Carolina $2.16 million more per execution than a non-death penalty murder case with a sentence of life imprisonment (Duke University, May 1993)
     
  18. One_Sith_Knight

    One_Sith_Knight Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 10, 2004
    So a life imprisonment is more cost effective for the government. Then I guess there is no need for capital punishment.
     
  19. DarthKarde

    DarthKarde Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2002
    So a life imprisonment is more cost effective for the government. Then I guess there is no need for capital punishment.

    The purpose of capital punishment is not to save money. Even it was cost effective it would be completely immoral to support it on such grounds alone.
     
  20. JarJar Slayer

    JarJar Slayer Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Jun 19, 2000
    I'm against capital punishment under any circumstance.

    Most cases are not clear cut. You can let someone out of jail and compensate them (to a degree) if you've wrongfully imprisoned them. It's somewhat more difficult to bring them back to life.

    In those clear cut cases, what a waste! Expendable human life can be an incredibly useful resource. Think of all the years you can shave off life saving drugs reaching the patients if you can test them on human subjects without worrying about their well being.

    If the drug is toxic, some men who commited atrocities like raping and killing six year old girls dies a horrible death. If it does work, you've just saved the lives of thousands of patients. Talk about a win win situation.
     
  21. Albert_Normandy

    Albert_Normandy Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2003
    tOOTH FOR A TOOTH, EYE FOR AN EYE. iF A PERSON KILLS SOMEONE HE MUST FACE THE PUNISHMENT
     
  22. Branthoris

    Branthoris Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Nov 12, 2002
    Capital punishment would be totally disproportionate for the majority of murders--which (at least insofar as my own country, Britain, is concerned) occur in the heat of passion after an argument between two people who know each other well. Just because death resulted does not mean that the guilty party is culpable enough to deserve being killed himself.

    The job of criminal justice is not to construct an equation between the harm caused and the harm handed down. The 'eye for an eye' principle is rubbish; on that basis, persistent shoplifters--and indeed all property offenders--would simply be fined.
     
  23. Eschatos

    Eschatos Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2005
    I think that the major problem people have with understanding the death penalty, at least for most people I've conversed with who support it, is that they approach it like the practice meshes completely with the concept of its "just" application (by "just" I mean the way in which most people see it as just-the persons in question had a fair trial, were found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and were competent enough to aid in their defense). If the supporters in the US think we handle things nicely, it would probably interest them to read the following from Amnesty International: "Since 2000, only five countries in the world are known to have executed juvenile offenders: China, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Iran, Pakistan, and the United States."

    The sad truth of the system is that sklled defense attorneys aren't equitably distributed, the state has practically unlimited resources to aid its prosecution, some defendants (as aforementioned) are either too young or disabled to participate in their defense, these circumstances lead to wrongful convictions, and the punishment is rather permanent. You can always release a wrongly convicted man from his cell. The same can't be said of the grave.
     
  24. darth_paul

    darth_paul Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 24, 2000
    I don't understand why the execution of minors is always assumed to be a bad thing. (This is only half-following your post, Eschatos, and not directly in response to it.) It seems to me that when one has standards for an orderly civilization, they should be standards, and when they are broken, the penalties for breaking them should be enforced. Assuming an equal standard of evidence and equal actions, I don't see why it matters who the criminal was (unless there's a criminal record or something which like that -- a record, for instance, demonstrates decreased likelihood for successful reintegration of society and a heightened disregard for the law, suggesting a more severe punishment). Now, if the penalty is something like imprisonment, I can see the merits in sending different types of offenders to different places, including children to an educational reform environment where they can continue their schooling after a fashion and be neither used nor molded into hardened criminals by adults, and those with mental problems to institutions where their risk can be evaluated and they can be treated in the hope of making an eventual societal reintegration more possible and safer. But it seems to me that a crime that warrants death committed in circumstances that demand death and showing sufficient evidence should be met with death, period. I don't see how the person involved should matter; I don't see why an eighteen-year-old should have to face one penalty but a sixteen-year-old not, or while mental impairment (which could potentially be increasing the risk to society) should automatically keep one alive. I don't see that we should be making excuses for certain groups of people automatically; if there are to be exceptions regarding a person's reformability, ability to understand his actions, etc., let's keep it on a case-by-case basis.

    In regards to Eschatos' post -- I understand how there might be those too impaired to speak in their own defense, but how so "too young"? We don't usually put newborns up for capital crimes, do we? Young children are permitted to testify in cases of child molestation (problematically, often through video testimony, though that's another topic). Why should they be unable to take the stands in their own defense? Or do you mean too young to do it well? In that case, again, a case-by-case basis would seem more appropriate (as with the mentally impaired, for there are degrees of impairment) instead of simply writing off everyone under 18.

    However, if the concern really is about a defendant's ability to represent himself, or even about the potential to rehabilitate and prepare for a normal life, I've got some use for that, even though I don't think drawing hard and fast lines on an arbitrary basis like age is the way to do it. I just think if we're to discuss this issue intelligently and set policy on it, we have to get away from emotional appeals and debate the issues on their merits. Very often when it comes up, capital punishment of minors is demonized off the bat without taking the timem to make an argument against it. It's this kind of thing we have to get away from. There are arguments against it, as Eschatos demonstrates, but there's no reason it's an automatically bad thing.

    -Paul
     
  25. Eschatos

    Eschatos Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jan 23, 2005
    Paul, I greatly appreciate the time, effort and consideration that you put into your post. However, I must respectfully disagree with your position. I believe that there are good reasons to set the bar at eighteen-if we should commit ourselves to capital punishment at all.

    As you point out, if we are taking intelligence into consideration, there is no reason to set a general guideline of unimpaired persons. However, for a juvenile, there also exists the issue of their maturity. Generally speaking, children may understand the concept of what is right and wrong. However, prescribing motive and intent to a child, and assuming that a child has a firm grasp of the full weight of an action such as murder, are tricky subjects. I'd rather err on the side of caution for the sake of the multitudes that fit the rule rather than the few exceptions.
     
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