The Death Penalty or Life Meaning Life

[MMI]

A question for you then MMI:

So are you saying that a rapist or someone guilty of kidnapping and torture of their victum should only have to sit in jail for a certian period of time geting three square meals a day but have no other form of retribution delivered upon them?

Hardely seems fair to the victims.

Yes, if that's the punishment handed down by the courts, that's the sentence he should serve (subject to any appeals).

It doesn't matter what the victims feel about it.

What would you have? A legal system that tortures the criminal?

[Saheli]

.My own argument, on the other hand, focuses on the crime rather than the victim, and I feel that the crime must be punished fairly (I don't think I've ever said the punishment should fit the crime...

I have to ask: if the crime is punished fairly, then wouldn't the punishment fit the crime? Or have I misunderstood your meaning?

[Saheli]

Yes, if that's the punishment handed down by the courts, that's the sentence he should serve (subject to any appeals).

It doesn't matter what the victims feel about it.

What would you have? A legal system that tortures the criminal?

I agree that punishments should not depend on how victims feel about things. I believe they should be somewhat of a reflection of the damage doled out to the victim: damage-focused, not victim-focused. Sometimes, they may equal, but that should be irrelevant. Can you imagine the psychological damage done to a child victim of rape? What if the rape was a longterm constant component of the child's life? What if the rapist was a family member? There are so many details that add varying degrees of damage. A few months in prison or even a couple of years pales in comparison.

There is nothing that anyone could do to such a rapist to impart the damage that was done to the child...unfortunately. But to say that if a court hands down a verdict, that's fine is not something I agree with. Of course we all should have respect to the systems that govern our lands, wherever we are in the world, but the only way I could agree to the statement that we should accept all verdicts handed down would be if that acceptance was accompanied by absolute certainty that the verdict was just.

Of course, we also know that there will never be a certainty either way: some verdicts are just while others are more of a joke. So back to the rapist, whose verdict might or might not be just...how do you define "just"? I don't know that we can, which is really what this entire thread is about. Is the death penalty justice? A few years, months? Guilt-driven, psyhological self-punishments?

I don't know what the answer is. But in the case of a child rapist, if the court hands down a couple of years when that child will be psychologically scarred for ALL OF THEIRS doesn't seem to be anywhere close to just in my opinion. So in that case I wouldn't be able to just accept the decision. You can never repair all damage done. I think we all know that. But we can get a little closer, don't you think?

As far as torturing criminals who have tortured other people, YES that is EXACTLY what I would consider justice! The main reason I believe that isn't a common practice is because there are so many other scenarios which would make that difficult to determine. What do you do to someone who got drunk and hit another car, killing someone? Put the criminal in a car, get drunk, and hit him? But in cases where it is a fairly obvious and not too difficult thing to do, no matter how inhumane it is, that is justice. So in that case I would absolutely be 100% in favor of torturing a torturer. And I wouldn't be opposed to having it taped and sold, either...send the money to the victim (if still alive) or victim's family.

[IAN 2411]

The Death Penalty or Life Meaning Life.

I have brought up this question because of the young girl being murdered last week in my country, and who did it? The girls ex boyfriend killed her, and I think that that is premeditated whatever the excuse. I expect him to give a plea of guilty and get life, but life in the UK life is 15 years, now that cannot be right. Life meaning life in this country will never happen, because of all the do good people that say, a prisoner must keep the knowledge that he might be freed one day.

As we are talking petty things MMI, I have not stated he is guilty, I stated that he has done the crime, yes it is presumptuous, but just in case you have not read the papers lately, the police have stated, “They are looking for no one else in connection with the murder of this poor girl,” I wonder what that means, you had better explain that to me also? If he is found guilty of the murder of a young innocent that has her life in front of her, then yes I would ask that he be executed, and just once more for you MMI. [A LIFE FOR A LIFE] in brackets this time so there is no need to highlight my words. Yes, I have suggested hanging judges be brought back, and you have grasped that implication clearly, in fact it was not a suggestion but a plea. It will not deter others committing murder, as I am not that naive to think of such things, but it would take a lot of trash off the streets. Let’s get something straight that we have all forgotten, I might be in favour of the death penalty, but that does not mean I like the idea, because I think it is a barbaric way of justice. I very much doubt that anyone that has written a post in this thread likes the death penalty, but until there is more just form of punishment that faces a perpetrator of these heinous crimes, they might be thinking like me that there is no alternative.

Regards ian 2411

[MMI]

You said he did it. That's the same as saying he's guilty!

The more just punishment is life (and I agree that must mean life).

As for your reference to "trash" it is objectionable in this context.

[MMI]

I have to ask: if the crime is punished fairly, then wouldn't the punishment fit the crime? Or have I misunderstood your meaning?

I agree they can be the same. I was simply pointing out that the phrase "the punishment must fit the crime" wasn't mine.

I don't agree that doing the same thing to the perpetrator that he did to the victim, whether that be killing him, torturing him, or raping him, necessarily fits the crime. It simply mirrors it.

If we are to abandon our established penal systems in favour of handing the convict over to the victim (or his family), then we are abandoning justice in favour of revenge. That way lies chaos and anarchy.

As for filming it, I find the idea sickening.

[SadisticNature]

A punishment can't be decided by the victims, after all there is a need for balance, justice and retribution are very different things. Ancient Babylon is not a place in which any of us would want to live.

That being said the punishment must be adequate enough that society has a reasonable belief that the punishment is fair. If people believe criminals are coddled, they lose trust in the government to protect them from crime, and there is also an increase in vigilante justice. Both of these things are highly undesirable.

Finding this balance is incredibly difficult. Reform of the justice system is very politicized and its hard to get people to sit down and focus on making a good system when people can't even agree on what the jail system is supposed to do.

My personal taste would be a system that could effectively test reform. Ideally I'd like to see a system where prisoners had optional labour for which they could earn credits. These credits would be at the control of the prisoner and could be used to:

(i) provide compensation to the victims families.
(ii) get additional counseling/mentoring services
(iii) provide for family of the criminal (pay towards child support?)
(iv) Compensate the government for the cost of jailing

Thus when a prisoner's sentence is being considered one would have a track record, showing how much they were willing to work, and what their priorities were with that money. If someone worked long hours, paid compensation to the victims families, and took their other responsibilities seriously, and their counselors/mentors express clearly that they are unlikely to reoffend they would get out sooner than someone who doesn't show the above. The current system is largely bluff and guesswork, because individuals don't earn anything that could measure their responsibility.

The exact details of such a system would require a lot of work, but it seems better than what we have now. Especially since forced labour is either limited or legally problematic in a lot of states.

Of course some people cringe at the idea of compensating prisoners for work in any way even if they can't keep the money for themselves.

The cushy image of jails that the right tends to paint is inaccurate in a lot of ways.

While its true that jails do have access to televisions they are shared among large groups which limits the availability of what can be watched. This is also available only during a very limited period of the day.

The mere existence of televisions for prisoners does not mean that prisoners have the right to watch television the way you would use it.

They are still told when they can eat, when they must work, when they can relax, when they can exercise, and are monitored at all times without privacy. It's a miserable existence, that no one would want or desire. Only the most rabid politic would call it coddling.

[Thorne]

It's a miserable existence, that no one would want or desire. Only the most rabid politic would call it coddling.

While I agree with your statement, you have to ask: given the choice between life in prison and death, how many murderers would choose death? My guess is that damned few would. And none of them gave their victims such a choice, did they?

[MMI]

Life is sweet, so they will choose life. And so they will serve their sentence.

[Saheli]

I don't agree that doing the same thing to the perpetrator that he did to the victim, whether that be killing him, torturing him, or raping him, necessarily fits the crime. It simply mirrors it.

If we are to abandon our established penal systems in favour of handing the convict over to the victim (or his family), then we are abandoning justice in favour of revenge. That way lies chaos and anarchy.

As for filming it, I find the idea sickening.

I completely agree that doing to an offender what has been done by them is mirroring the crime, which in my opinion is the truest form of justice. Why is it that you feel that is NOT justice? What is your argument for that?

Not all establishments are always fair, but as I mentioned before they should be respected, and I don't think any convict should ever be handed over to the victim's family. That's not what I said or meant.

As for filming, I respect your opinion, but it is no more sickening to do to the convict what was done to the victim. If such a punishment were given (regardless of whether it was filmed or not), that would not be handing someone over to the victim or victim's family...so I'm not quite sure where you're getting that idea from. If you are saying it because you feel the satisfaction of the people who watch the mirrored crime negates the justice I would have to ask you to defend that idea to, because a side emotion has nothing to do with motive...It would be just whether anyone else felt anything.

If the cliche "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is what we consider justice, then I don't understand why you feel a punishment that mirrors a crime is justice.

[Saheli]

My personal taste would be a system that could effectively test reform. Ideally I'd like to see a system where prisoners had optional labour for which they could earn credits. These credits would be at the control of the prisoner and could be used to:

(i) provide compensation to the victims families.
(ii) get additional counseling/mentoring services
(iii) provide for family of the criminal (pay towards child support?)
(iv) Compensate the government for the cost of jailing

Thus when a prisoner's sentence is being considered one would have a track record, showing how much they were willing to work, and what their priorities were with that money. If someone worked long hours, paid compensation to the victims families, and took their other responsibilities seriously, and their counselors/mentors express clearly that they are unlikely to reoffend they would get out sooner than someone who doesn't show the above. The current system is largely bluff and guesswork, because individuals don't earn anything that could measure their responsibility.

I really like your idea and would definitely vote for something like that if the opportunity ever arose.

[IAN 2411]

A punishment can't be decided by the victims, after all there is a need for balance, justice and retribution are very different things. Ancient Babylon is not a place in which any of us would want to live.

That being said the punishment must be adequate enough that society has a reasonable belief that the punishment is fair. If people believe criminals are coddled, they lose trust in the government to protect them from crime, and there is also an increase in vigilante justice. Both of these things are highly undesirable.

Finding this balance is incredibly difficult. Reform of the justice system is very politicized and its hard to get people to sit down and focus on making a good system when people can't even agree on what the jail system is supposed to do.

My personal taste would be a system that could effectively test reform. Ideally I'd like to see a system where prisoners had optional labour for which they could earn credits. These credits would be at the control of the prisoner and could be used to:

(i) provide compensation to the victims families.
(ii) get additional counseling/mentoring services
(iii) provide for family of the criminal (pay towards child support?)
(iv) Compensate the government for the cost of jailing

Thus when a prisoner's sentence is being considered one would have a track record, showing how much they were willing to work, and what their priorities were with that money. If someone worked long hours, paid compensation to the victims families, and took their other responsibilities seriously, and their counselors/mentors express clearly that they are unlikely to reoffend they would get out sooner than someone who doesn't show the above. The current system is largely bluff and guesswork, because individuals don't earn anything that could measure their responsibility.

The exact details of such a system would require a lot of work, but it seems better than what we have now. Especially since forced labour is either limited or legally problematic in a lot of states.

Of course some people cringe at the idea of compensating prisoners for work in any way even if they can't keep the money for themselves.

The cushy image of jails that the right tends to paint is inaccurate in a lot of ways.

While its true that jails do have access to televisions they are shared among large groups which limits the availability of what can be watched. This is also available only during a very limited period of the day.

The mere existence of televisions for prisoners does not mean that prisoners have the right to watch television the way you would use it.

They are still told when they can eat, when they must work, when they can relax, when they can exercise, and are monitored at all times without privacy. It's a miserable existence, that no one would want or desire. Only the most rabid politic would call it coddling.

That hasn’t got a hope in hell of working with the majority of prisoners, because most are habitual, and I presume you are talking about murderers, for god’s sake get real, apart from a minute percent you could never trust them again however many credits they had. The murderers lost all credibility when they carried out their heinous crimes, they are there to be punished, and that is only because they escaped the death penalty.

Regards ian 2411

[IAN 2411]

given the choice between life in prison and death, how many murderers would choose death? My guess is that damned few would. And none of them gave their victims such a choice, did they?

That is so very true.

Regards ian 2411

[MMI]

I completely agree that doing to an offender what has been done by them is mirroring the crime, which in my opinion is the truest form of justice. Why is it that you feel that is NOT justice? What is your argument for that?

Mirroring the crime is tit-for-tat behaviour which might be appropriate for school playgrounds, but not for an advanced legal system, such as we have in England. It reduces the offence to somethng that can be cancelled out by an equivalent action, which is patent nonsense in a crime like murder. It brings judicial punishment down to the level of personal revenge, and it could lead to counter-retaliations and blood feuds. Look what happened in Iceland in Norse times.

Some offences are crimes against society: murder is one such. It is the duty of society to its citizens to capture murderers and to deal with them in a way that will protect society in the future. In doing so, they will set an appropriate penalty, or a range of penalties, according to acceptable standards, and they will sentence a convicted killer accordingly. Judicial punishment must be certain, measured and proportionate. It must be imposed dispassionately. Therefore the victim's family should not be allowed to influence that sentence, no matter how badly they feel about it.

That's justice.

As for filming, I respect your opinion, but it is no more sickening to do to the convict what was done to the victim. ... If you are saying it because you feel the satisfaction of the people who watch the mirrored crime negates the justice I would have to ask you to defend that idea to, because a side emotion has nothing to do with motive...It would be just whether anyone else felt anything.

I don't think it affects the justice of the execution one way or the other. I just think it's gruesome and I wonder who it can be shown to: the vicitm's family, to prove what was done, so they can get closure?

Just tell them. Knowledge of the death should be closure enough

Anyone else can only want to see it for reasons that are disturbingly macarbre, ghoulish and depraved.

[Thorne]

I don't think it affects the justice of the execution one way or the other. I just think it's gruesome and I wonder who it can be shown to: the vicitm's family, to prove what was done, so they can get closure?

Just tell them. Knowledge of the death should be closure enough

Anyone else can only want to see it for reasons that are disturbingly macarbre, ghoulish and depraved.

At one time in history, punishments were public and brutal, and intended as a lesson for aspiring criminals. While I don't propose making executions brutal, I sometimes wonder if making them more public might not benefit society more than putting criminals away where people can forget they exist.

[Saheli]

Mirroring the crime is tit-for-tat behaviour which might be appropriate for school playgrounds, but not for an advanced legal system, such as we have in England. It reduces the offence to somethng that can be cancelled out by an equivalent action, which is patent nonsense in a crime like murder. It brings judicial punishment down to the level of personal revenge, and it could lead to counter-retaliations and blood feuds. Look what happened in Iceland in Norse times.

Some offences are crimes against society: murder is one such. It is the duty of society to its citizens to capture murderers and to deal with them in a way that will protect society in the future. In doing so, they will set an appropriate penalty, or a range of penalties, according to acceptable standards, and they will sentence a convicted killer accordingly. Judicial punishment must be certain, measured and proportionate. It must be imposed dispassionately. Therefore the victim's family should not be allowed to influence that sentence, no matter how badly they feel about it.

That's justice.

You could look at it as tit-for-tat, but like I said, it goes back to the 'eye for an eye' thing. As far as what happened in Iceland in Norse times I have no idea what you're talking about...I might look it up. You say "judicial punishment must be certain, measured, and proportionate..." which doesn't contradict my submitted idea. You go on to say that "it must be imposed dispassionately." I agree. Just because I feel it is justice in the truest sense for an offender to endure his own offense does not mean I believe that the punishment should be given out of passion, and I never mentioned anything about the family being able to influence the sentence. So it really seems like your definition of justice is not too much different than mine. You just disagree that an offender should endure his own offense.

Your arguments seem to be that if such a sentence were imparted, it would be a passionate rather than an objective one; that such a sentence would not cancel out the crime and therefore not a valid punishment; that such punishments could "lead to counter-retaliations and blood-fueds"; and that the victim or victim's family would have some influence in such a sentence.

-->I disagree that such a sentence would inherently be passionate. That argument would have to extend to the death penalty as well, saying that if the death penalty were to be imparted then the sentence would have been one of feelings and not merit.

-->No sentence cancels out a crime. The fact that this punishment wouldn't says nothing either way about the validity of the punishment...show me a punishment for which this argument doesn't apply.

-->I can't speak to your Icelandic example until I have some idea what you're talking about.

-->Lastly, why do you assume that the victim/victim's family would have influenced the punishment if one such punishment were to be imparted?

[DuncanONeil]

Yes, if that's the punishment handed down by the courts, that's the sentence he should serve (subject to any appeals).

It doesn't matter what the victims feel about it.

What would you have? A legal system that tortures the criminal?

Perhaps! If the criminal tortures their victim.
Prison in America is more of an enforced vacation than anything else. The only punishment that exists is meted out by the other prisoners. Although it is a crime on their part.

[DuncanONeil]

That is one of the difficulties of the American system of governance. We have codified that no punishment can be cruel or inhumane. That holds even when the crime is both cruel and inhumane. On the basis of that we can, in many cases, not provide a punishment that actually fits the crime. That is why in response to the torture question my answer is perhaps.
The measure of "cruel and inhumane" has be fixated upon to create the "luxury" prisons that now are de rigueur. There is no real punishment in prison, merely an inconvenience.

As far as torturing criminals who have tortured other people, YES that is EXACTLY what I would consider justice! The main reason I believe that isn't a common practice is because there are so many other scenarios which would make that difficult to determine. What do you do to someone who got drunk and hit another car, killing someone? Put the criminal in a car, get drunk, and hit him? But in cases where it is a fairly obvious and not too difficult thing to do, no matter how inhumane it is, that is justice. So in that case I would absolutely be 100% in favor of torturing a torturer. And I wouldn't be opposed to having it taped and sold, either...send the money to the victim (if still alive) or victim's family.

[DuncanONeil]

You said he did it. That's the same as saying he's guilty!

The more just punishment is life (and I agree that must mean life).

As for your reference to "trash" it is objectionable in this context.

Yes he did say that but he also said he expected him to plead guilty. There has to be a reason for coming to that conclusion.

[DuncanONeil]

First of all in US prisons inmates do have access to compensated work.
As for the objection to the "right" based picture of prisons coddleing. The description that you present with the added comment; "The mere existence of televisions for prisoners does not mean that prisoners have the right to watch television the way you would use it.

They are still told when they can eat, when they must work, when they can relax, when they can exercise, and are monitored at all times without privacy. It's a miserable existence, that no one would want or desire."
Is itself somewhat self serving. The description you present is very similar to the way the US military lives. Save for one thing, the military does not get locked in at night. Save for that your description also paints military life as "a miserable existence, that no one would want or desire." I guess the pay makes a difference as well.

A punishment can't be decided by the victims, after all there is a need for balance, justice and retribution are very different things. Ancient Babylon is not a place in which any of us would want to live.

That being said the punishment must be adequate enough that society has a reasonable belief that the punishment is fair. If people believe criminals are coddled, they lose trust in the government to protect them from crime, and there is also an increase in vigilante justice. Both of these things are highly undesirable.

Finding this balance is incredibly difficult. Reform of the justice system is very politicized and its hard to get people to sit down and focus on making a good system when people can't even agree on what the jail system is supposed to do.

My personal taste would be a system that could effectively test reform. Ideally I'd like to see a system where prisoners had optional labour for which they could earn credits. These credits would be at the control of the prisoner and could be used to:

(i) provide compensation to the victims families.
(ii) get additional counseling/mentoring services
(iii) provide for family of the criminal (pay towards child support?)
(iv) Compensate the government for the cost of jailing

Thus when a prisoner's sentence is being considered one would have a track record, showing how much they were willing to work, and what their priorities were with that money. If someone worked long hours, paid compensation to the victims families, and took their other responsibilities seriously, and their counselors/mentors express clearly that they are unlikely to reoffend they would get out sooner than someone who doesn't show the above. The current system is largely bluff and guesswork, because individuals don't earn anything that could measure their responsibility.

The exact details of such a system would require a lot of work, but it seems better than what we have now. Especially since forced labour is either limited or legally problematic in a lot of states.

Of course some people cringe at the idea of compensating prisoners for work in any way even if they can't keep the money for themselves.

The cushy image of jails that the right tends to paint is inaccurate in a lot of ways.

While its true that jails do have access to televisions they are shared among large groups which limits the availability of what can be watched. This is also available only during a very limited period of the day.

The mere existence of televisions for prisoners does not mean that prisoners have the right to watch television the way you would use it.

They are still told when they can eat, when they must work, when they can relax, when they can exercise, and are monitored at all times without privacy. It's a miserable existence, that no one would want or desire. Only the most rabid politic would call it coddling.

[DuncanONeil]

life is sweet, so they will choose life. And so they will serve their sentence.

maybe!

[DuncanONeil]

If the cliche "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is what we consider justice, then I don't understand why you feel a punishment that mirrors a crime is justice.

Surely this originates in the Code of Hammurabi. But it does appear in the Bible, twice. Once as law in the Old Testament. Again in the New Testament; "You have heard that it was said, 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.' But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also" But this does not deal with punishment for having committed a crime but for individual actions between people.

[MMI]

At one time in history, punishments were public and brutal, and intended as a lesson for aspiring criminals. While I don't propose making executions brutal, I sometimes wonder if making them more public might not benefit society more than putting criminals away where people can forget they exist.

As noted above, England no longer has the death penalty, and its restoration is highly improbable. If calling for its return is futile, how much more so is suggesting public executions be brought back.

These events eventually became repugnant to English society, as far back as the seventeenth century, and executions began to take place within the prison walls rather than outside, in front of milling crowds, sometimes running into tens of thousands ... a spectacle at times as gory and hideous as the Roman arenas. Public executions appeal to our basest instincts, and encoursge behaviour I can only call depraved. Imagine the Sun Life Stadium filled with over 75,000 people braying for the blood of some convict or other, or, hopefully, more than one. They can't all be grieving relatives, so why would they be there? Just to watch a man die ... dangling on the end of a rope ... simply that ... disgusting!

Imagine the dvds on sale afterwards: $10.99, plus an interview with the hangman.


Thank God it'll never happen here - not in my lifetime anyway.

[SadisticNature]

The difference in the military is that you make a voluntary choice to give up some rights to the control of the country/president/your superior officers in order to serve ones country. A prisoner is not doing anything of benefit by serving their sentence. They don't have prestige or respect. They also don't have the pay. A voluntary choice to temporarily give up some rights to better serve a cause you believe in is a far cry from giving up rights for an indeterminate and possibly lifelong period for no noble reason at all. Making noble sacrifices is often personally rewarding and can make up for the consequences of losing some rights.

On the other hand when the choice is taken away the military is often a miserable existence. Look at draft dodging (particularly during Vietnam) and the horrors of risking your life against your will for a cause you don't believe in.

So I do think my earlier point stands regardless of your somewhat inaccurate attempt to compare the rights of a prisoner to the rights of a soldier.

[IAN 2411]

As noted above, England no longer has the death penalty, and its restoration is highly improbable. If calling for its return is futile, how much more so is suggesting public executions be brought back.

These events eventually became repugnant to English society, as far back as the seventeenth century, and executions began to take place within the prison walls rather than outside, in front of milling crowds, sometimes running into tens of thousands ... a spectacle at times as gory and hideous as the Roman arenas. Public executions appeal to our basest instincts, and encoursge behaviour I can only call depraved. Imagine the Sun Life Stadium filled with over 75,000 people braying for the blood of some convict or other, or, hopefully, more than one. They can't all be grieving relatives, so why would they be there? Just to watch a man die ... dangling on the end of a rope ... simply that ... disgusting!

Imagine the dvds on sale afterwards: $10.99, plus an interview with the hangman.


Thank God it'll never happen here - not in my lifetime anyway.

In this case i really have to agree with you, and on all points in your post.

[MMI]

... I never mentioned anything about the family being able to influence the sentence.

I got that idea from earlier posts in the thread and continued to think that way when responding to you. I understand now that you were suggesting this kind of punishment be inflected deliberately and cold-bloodedly by people who are completely disconnected from the original crime. In front of cameras.

I deny there is any kind of justice in the system of punishment you propose.

... So it really seems like your definition of justice is not too much different than mine. You just disagree that an offender should endure his own offense.

I can see why you say that, but I actually believe that the offender should receive the degree of punishment prescribed by the law. The law does not need to submit the offender to the same treatment he gave his victim, and it does not have to be led by his actions. Modern society can protect itself without resorting to such brutal, primitive conduct, and it can exact retribution without taking an eye, or a tooth, or a hand or a foot, or even a life. We left that behind in the Dark Ages, and it is well that we did. In those days, life was much harder than it is now, and government was imposed by force rather than by democratic participation.

Your arguments seem to be that if such a sentence were imparted, it would be a passionate rather than an objective one; that such a sentence would not cancel out the crime and therefore not a valid punishment; that such punishments could "lead to counter-retaliations and blood-fueds"; and that the victim or victim's family would have some influence in such a sentence.

-->I disagree that such a sentence would inherently be passionate. That argument would have to extend to the death penalty as well, saying that if the death penalty were to be imparted then the sentence would have been one of feelings and not merit.

That is what I am arguing. I do not believe a sober-minded dispassionate person would stipulate that the crime of murder be subject to the death penalty when he considers the alternatives available. Only if influenced by emotion would he say that hanging was appropriate because there is not a single benefit to be gained from executing the murderer other than to satiate disturbed passions.

-->No sentence cancels out a crime. The fact that this punishment wouldn't says nothing either way about the validity of the punishment...show me a punishment for which this argument doesn't apply.

I agree. Crimes, once committed cannot be cancelled out or nullified. Yet an "eye for an eye" has every appearance of saying one bad deed can be cancelled out by another, and a "life for a life" carries exactly the same implication.

I can't speak to your Icelandic example until I have some idea what you're talking about.

In Iceland, during Norse times, there was no-one to enforce the laws made by the Alþingi, and those who sought redress for some offence against them were obliged to obtain it themselves, by force if necessary. Icelandic society became riven by feuding families, and was unable to develop as a result. This, I suggest is actual evidence of what happens when justice, equated with revenge, is left to individuals to enforce. It ceases to be even-handed, measured or certain and becomes haphazzard, excessive and random.

Lastly, why do you assume that the victim/victim's family would have influenced the punishment if one such punishment were to be imparted?

I was working on the premise that a punishment based on revenge could only be imposed by those who had been directly affected by the crime - the vicitm's family. Where the death sentence is to be imposed, I believe it is an act of revenge rather than a dispassionate judicial punishment.

It is common these days for victims to be allowed to address courts nowadays in an attempt to secure a harsher penalty for the accused, which can only be pandering to the revenge motive.

Why not allow the killer's family to submit special pleas on how badly they will be affected if he is hanged?

[MMI]

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of capital punishment, and that debate might still rumble on for a while, what do people think about convicted murderers being allowed to commit suicide? Should tghis be permitted? I've started a new thread to discuss this possibility. I have no trenchant views on this, although I do incline towrds the belief that suicide is not to be encourged. Remember, replies on the other thread http://www.bdsmlibrary.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=21985

[13'sbadkitty]

in my state the last govenor reinstated the death penalty. i personally am against it for the reasons so well said above. i just don't see how we spend years telling our kids not to retaliate unless absolute necessary and then do the opposite. i don't see how violent is defined consistently either. as was mentioned above drunk driving with regard to vehicular manslaughter, but isn't a person who is driving drunk already willing to commit the same thing? does not taking a cab to the bar indicate premeditation? How about domestic violence cases where the abused premediates killing of the person who beat them for years? Here they often get lifelong sentences because it seems that beaten women aren't allowed to fight back for real. it has been shown that our criminal justice system is flawed, as did the discovery of DNA for forensics free falsly incarecerated people. what do we say to their kids? oops? life in prison in NYS is horrible and imo death is easier. when my ex husband was in county jail things were bad although he belonged there. rats and mice all over the place. guards who treated me like a criminal because i showed up for an inmate who wasn't even convicted and for all they knew was innocent and poor. here poor people and minorities have a much higher rate of being jailed and is it always because they did it? like the guy in "To Kill a Mockingbird"? i have long wondered why non-violent criminals go to jail instead of community service like cleaning the damn parkways and leave the violent people together to exact vengeance. atleast in my country we can't seem to decide if its rehabilitation or revenge we want. lets all imagine that if i was accused of a crime and my Masters toys were discovered what would happen with that jury

[Thorne]

Thank God it'll never happen here - not in my lifetime anyway.

Yeah, I have to agree. I wasn't advocating that we bring them back, just musing about it.

[MMI]

I agree that the criminal justice system is flawed, and injustices are far more common than is realised or admitted. I also agree with your observation that the system is loaded against particular sections of society: black youths, the working classes and the unemployed, abused women and so on. This has been illustrated in this very thread, where whole sections of society have been labelled "trash" and "yobs" (instinctively, I believe, not maliciously) for which the harshest penalties must be used to punish their crimes.

Murder is not a black or working class crime. It is certainly not a female crime. While more murders occur among the lower classes, they are usually committed in the heat of the moment, whereas, when a killing takes place among the higher social classes, power or money is usually the motive. It might be cynical of me, but I suggest that working class killers use murder where they see no other option, or where they lose control, while upper class killers see murder as the most expedient way to achieve their purposes, after calculating the pro's and con's and concluding that a person's death is necessary. Such people would never be called yobs or trash.

... lets all imagine that if i was accused of a crime and my Masters toys were discovered what would happen with that jury

I have no doubt at all that his toys would be used to smear your character and to suggest this is indicative of your guilt (and possibly implicate him too).