The Death Penalty or Life Meaning Life

[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?