Quote:
Originally Posted by GMScud
Well, wouldn't it be wrong not to execute the person who rapes/kills SS33's niece, yet instead provide them with a roof over their head, clothing, toilet, and 3 meals a day while they live out the rest of their lives on the dime of the American taxpayer?
The most brutal and horrific crimes should be met with steepest of punishment. I'm not saying everyone convicted of murder should die, but the most hardcore, grisly, horrific killers/rapists have no place draining resources in our prison system. One way or another they're dying behind bars. Why not just get that shit over with? Considering what they've taken from their victims and their families, why should they be afforded the gift of time to read, relax, and "rehabilitate?"
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See, this is part of the problem in applying the death penalty: Who gets to decide if its a "death worthy" crime? If not every killer should die, what defines "hardcore grisly" etc.? Who makes the call - the jury? the judge?
On one hand their is the laudatory goal of adding discretion to the system since (believe it or not) every case is different. On the other, once discretion is added, arbitrariness and injustice creep in. Once imposition of the death penalty becomes arbitrary, IMHO, it becomes unjust. Unfortunately, removing discretion (and therefore the possibility of arbitrariness), will inevitably lead to the death penalty being imposed upon someone whom “everybody” (read: a large majority of people) believes should not be killed.
For example:
Someone rapes and kills his 23 year old ex-girlfriend. Is that death worthy? Let's say it’s a nice "clean" rape and kill. The killer is basically a good guy who just snapped b/c of the break up. He breaks in, rapes her once, and then smothers her with a pillow. The police find him the next morning sobbing and saying he's sorry, and confessing to everything. Other than the rape, the woman was not tortured or excessively beaten.
Same story, but now its a burglar with no relation to the victim, and he is only found when he is picked up for some unrelated crime. Turns out the rape and kill were just crimes of "opportunity" as he did not expect to find anyone home.
Same story, but now it’s a person of no particular standing who stalked the woman with the intent to rape her. The rape and kill are again quick and relatively “clean”. The murderer is found and confesses after a police investigation. Although he confesses, he does not provide, and no one can determine, why he did the crimes (no known relation to victim, no history of violent crime, etc.).
Finally, it’s a person of no particular standing who stalked the woman with the intent to rape her. The rape is clearly brutal and the death painful. But, the woman has no relatives, she is a prostitute (though the rape took place while she was not “working”), has no family. While brutal (he physically beats her during the rape), she isn’t mutilated or “tortured”, the death, while painful, is quick.
In each case, we are 100% sure of the murderer.
In my opinion, either all get it or none get it. If we add bright lines to delineate, fine i.e. murder plus: any type of sexual assault, victim under the age of 17, any type of mutilation, any type of "torture". Each of these categories, of course, has their own grey areas (Murderer exposes himself and kills someone - is that a sexual assault? Murderer informs victim he has killed his entire family and raped his kids even though this is not true, Is that "torture”?).
Part of this (and this board shows it in microcosm) is that we each have a different idea of what "justice" is. Also, we each place a different emphasis on what rights the group has when in conflict with individual liberties. Similar to that, but slightly different, we each have a different idea as to what authority the civil society has and how much power it has/should have.
For me the priority is upon fairness and the society’s valuation of
innocent life. Any innocent life. It is not for individuals within the society to decide who shall live and who shall die – No one person has that right over me or my family and I have that right over no one else. It is for the society, the group, the whole, to come to a consensus and then enforce that decision equitably. I am bound to live by that consensus or move out.
Just look at the various points of view in this thread and you can see why we will always struggle with the subtleties of this topic. Quite frankly, IMHO, this is one of those where there is no “right” answer. We just muddle through it the best we can knowing that a large part of the society will always be dissatisfied with the result.