Capital Punishment

[TowinKarz]

I don't think you can, in good faith, make an argument that the death penalty has a deterrent effect on crime, either. Deterrence only works on minor stuff anyway and providing an incentive for the law-abiding to stay that way because they have too much to lose. You don't cheat on your taxes because you could lose life savings AND go to jail. You don't steal a newspaper because you get a reputation as a shoplifter means nobody will serve you AND you end up with with fines and having to do community service.

Deterrence works in those situations.

But the death penalty, in it's current form? You pretty much have to kill someone to get it, and if you're plotting to kill someone, you've crossed the line of being able to rationally weigh pros and cons. Besides 400 some odd things were punishable by death in Merry old England, from stealing an egg to beheading the King, and somehow, that didn't stop either of those things from happening.....

 

[DoctorJimmyRay]

I never could reconcile the fallible nature of human legal judgements with the finality of a death sentence. A person proven innocent after 10 years in prison can get a hefty compensation. A corpse can't be revivified. An innocent man or woman being executed for a crime they didn't commit is, in my opinion, the height of judicial cruelty. I cannot believe it's more preferable to ensure that the guilty be put to death at the expense of a few innocent people's lives, rather than the inverse. On that point alone, the death penalty should be set aside.

That being said, I don't think it should be outlawed. Despite its objectionable nature, there are some people who just need to die. I'm talking about the worst of the worst of the worst. People who are so utterly dangerous and unrepentant that it's safer for everyone else involved if the guilty were put to death.

So I'd say it should be set aside, as a rule, but not abolished. Instead, it is to be used when there is no hope of redemption of any kind combined with a dangerous criminal nature that cannot be mitigated by confinement. Only then should it start to be considered as an option.