Senate Death Penalty - General Discussion

My position: Executing either Holmes or Tsarnev (or for that matter anyone else) sends a terrible message to the world.

Killing Tsarnev sends a message to terrorists everywhere that there's nothing extraordinary or morally problematic with the methods organizations like IS employ for exercising power. Send more martyrs!

Killing Holmes sends a message that we don't care about anything we really know about the nature of mental illness and culpability. That it's easier to just dispose of the violently mentally ill than take responsibility for our public health failures as a society.

Not executing them or anyone else on U.S. sovereign territory won't solve the problem of things like extraterritorial extrajudicial drone assassinations, but it's a start.

 

It should be done away with, there are far too many cases where the guilty verdict gets overturned eventually.

And according to wiki, this is a list of countries that currently have the death penalty:

• Afghanistan
• Bahamas
• Bangladesh
• Belarus
• Botswana
• China
• Cuba
• Egypt
• Guatemala
• India
• Indonesia
• Iran
• Iraq
• Japan
• Jordan
• North Korea
• South Korea
• Lebanon
• Malaysia
• Pakistan
• Russia
• Saudi Arabia
• Singapore
• Somalia
• Sri Lanka
• Syria
• Taiwan
• Tajikistan
• Thailand
• Tonga
• United Arab Emirates
• United States
• Vietnam
• Yemen

(the ones in italics haven't given the death penalty in ten years +)

How many of those countries do the US really want to be alligned with on this issue?

 

Isn't John Holmes already dead?

 

Whether Holmes gets the death penalty or not won't at all affect our social infrastructure concerning mental illness victims. How does the US implement a program to readily diagnose and treat people with mental illnesses? I might be wrong, but as I understand it, for the most part the current system is pretty much voluntary. If you think you suffer from a mental illness, it's mostly on you to seek treatment and hope that your insurance will cover it. I had a friend who suffered from mental issues and tried his best to seek help. There were so many obstructions to getting adequate, affordable help, that he just quit. He had a job, but his employer's insurance didn't cover mental illness, and he couldn't afford the treatment out of pocket, etc, etc.

The guy would go through these episodes every year or so, if not sooner. He would shave his entire head, become prone to enraged outbursts, sobbing fits, etc, etc. And his condition caused most people to see him as some sort of leper. Admitting to a mental illness is incredibly taboo, and that alone can usually stop victims from seeking help. But when they do want to get better and can't figure out how, then it's even worse.

So, since he couldn't find any course to take in the civilian world, he decided to apply for the military. Because guns or something.

 

There is literally no reason the US needs the death penalty.

 

Not a fan of the death penalty...but at the same time, I'm not going to shed any tears if Holmes or Tsarnaev should happen to get the needle.

 

As I understand it, the US is returning to fire squads instead of lethal injection.

 

No, that's just TWO states: Utah and Oklahoma.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/methods-execution

 

Death by fire squad, not something I'd wish on anyone.

 

The GOP-controlled Nebraska legislature is poised to pass death penalty abolition-- enough to overcome the governor's potential veto. Of course, its replacement is life without parole, which is only better because some hypothetically innocent people could be hypothetically exonerated one day.

 

What would your ideal prison look like?

 

I never really understood the principle of life imprisonment. Does this sentence exist only as a means of moral insurance in the chance that the convicted is actually innocent?

 

I don't see the inherent problem with it... if a certain crime is that severe, why should a person ever have a chance of getting out?

 

Well, the question that needs to be asked is why are we keeping the person in prison to begin with. Is it to punish them or to keep society safe? Or another reason?

 

One might expect the former is the actual core answer while the latter serves as supplemental reasoning. But if indeed life imprisonment is intended for the benefit of society, then surely the arguments for execution gain more weight.

 

I don't consider the case for state sponsored revenge murder to have any weight.

 

Not that the state needs revenge. It's more about taking revenge on behalf of the victims' families. Saudi Arabia is a lot more straightforward about this. They allow the victim's family members to pardon, accept blood money in lieu of execution, or carry out the execution themselves if they so choose. I think it's better to remove the thin veneer of civilization over a barbaric practice. If you're going to be a bear, be a grizzly. A very grizzly, gruesome bear.

 

If we are after justice or some retribution then execution is completely acceptable.

If we as a society have evolved beyond the need for justice or retribution and instead want rehabilitation then imprisonment and execution are completely unacceptable.

If the people want blood give them blood. If they don't, send them to therapy for a few years and let them go.

 

Ship him to the moon.

 

it's clear some people don't have the capacity for rehabilitation, aren't capable of remorse. I would definitely hold out the most hope of rehabilitation for people who were in their teens or early twenties when they committed violent crimes. We know for certain that youth have underdeveloped brains and raging hormonal imbalances that make almost all of them mentally impaired. Treatment and release should be the goal for young offenders.

 

I don't think Justice and execution go together.

 

Justice is the positive form of retribution/vengeance. It is socially/state sanctioned vengeance. If someone murders the only just response is to kill them as well. Life for life. Anything else is not just.

 

You got any source for such a narrow definition of justice?

 

You're asking me, right? Well, first of all, sentencing doesn't have to do with how prisons are run. I would completely abolish capital punishment and life without parole as a start. Most non-violent offenders wouldn't go to prison at all under my system ( ).

Prisons should focus primarily if not exclusively on rehabilitation. If you want to look at it sociopathically pragmatically, then you'll want to note that recidivism rates are much lower in countries that focus more on rehabilitation. The prisoners' physical and psychological well-being should be of the utmost importance. They should be fed healthy diets, given plenty of opportunity for exercise and socialization, and their medical needs should be attended to without cutting corners. Prisoners should have access to entertainment within reason (books, movies, television, music) and should be able to have plenty of contact with friends and family via phone, snail mail, e-mail, in-person visits. Prisoners should have many educational and vocational opportunities; it should not be legal to employ them as slave labor for a pittance. Those who are released should be given guidance (not just an officer looking to bust them on minor violations), and penalties for felons outside of prison (e.g., no voting rights) should be abolished. Finally, there should be a much stricter, legally imposed standard for solitary confinement-- if it shouldn't be abolished altogether, that is. Solitary confinement is torture and it is used liberally in prisons all over the country. The isolation psychologically damages the prisoners and makes them, among other things, more violent and likely to re-offend.

This would just be a start.