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NealIRC -> The Death Penalty: For or Against? (6/10/2008 1:16:40 PM)
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I'm traditionally against the death penalty. It's uncivil. We're in the 21st century - shouldn't we be acting more civil? As a society we say that killing someone is wrong. How can we say that and then put someone to death? Isn't that the ultimate in hypocrisy? The death penalty unfortunately doesn't protect the public and makes no economic sense.
The United States has a death penalty. Whereas Mexico and Canada doesn't. Neither does France, Germany, or Italy. I'm from the U.S. and think it should be abolished. So what do you guys think?
Appeal to sympathy arguments.
1.The punishment is the same as the crime committed - killing a person. Shouldn't the government lead by example?
Not all countries have a death penalty for killing. Some are notably less. Singapore is a country which carries a mandatory death sentence for those caught with more than 15 grams of heroin.
2.It is the wrong way to use revenge. The same thing that happens to someone sentenced the death penalty happens to your grandma. How does this "revenge" or "feel better" do any significance?
Statistical arguments.
3.The death penalty is not a deterrent. Data suggests that this form of punishment doesn't stop the crime at all. Probably because people that kill others are mentally unstable, or their crime is 1 of passion most that can kill have major personality disorders, so the death penalty doesn't stop them.
Economic reasons.
4.It's far cheaper to house someone for the rest of their life then it is to exhaust their appeals. What population percentage of people sentenced the death penalty don't actually appeal?
The following are all U.S. statistics.
Mistakes from the past.
5.The governments has at many times sentenced an innocent person - this isn't acceptable. Even the chance that we put *1* person to death that doesn't deserve it means that the whole thing should be stopped. The state murdered an innocent - so do we go and put the government to death? Or is someone going to make the argument that this is just an acceptable loss?
On April 23, 2007, D.N.A. cleared its 200th person another milestone for a technology that has not only reversed convictions but has also prompted a more critical look at flaws in the justice system - from crime lab work to the way arson cases are investigated. The 1st reversal case was in 1989. The 100th case happened in 13 years, but 5 to double that number.
Historical bias.
While the death penalty in the United States has far improved, it has had a huge historial bias, particular on race.
Blacks.
Between 1930 and 1976, 405 of the 455 men who were executed for rape, a capital offense until 1977, were black.
More than 80% of those who have been executed since 1976 were found guilty of killing whites. This has been verified by the U.S. Accounting Office, which in a 1990 review, stated, "Those who murdered whites were found to be more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks."
Only 6 executions since 1976 have seen white prisoners put to death for killing blacks.
Juveniles (under 18).
Between 1973 and 1998, of the total 6,300 imposed deaths, 173 of them were juveniles, and 11 of them have been executed, 8 since 1990.
In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court set the minimum age limit of the death penalty to 16 (in the Thompson versus Oklahoma case). On March 1, 2005, they upped it up to 18.
Studies show that the majority of juveniles convicted of violent crimes had been subjected to abuse as young children.
So what do you guys think?
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