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Original poster

Death penalty

380 replies

birthdayboo · 05/09/2018 00:01

I don't quite understand the logic of people who want to murder people who have committed awful crimes.

I do understand saying you wish you could, verbalising the anger felt and not literally meaning you would actually carry out a killing yourself.

I don't understand when people swear they would actually kill

One horrific crime doesn't go away because you commit another horrific crime such as murder on the guilty?

I don't understand the death penalty either - I totally agree that life seems too good for some people, however it's still legalising murdering a human being to have the state kill them - so I just can't get my head around murdering someone because they murdered someone. Perhaps some form of voluntary self administered euthanasia being available by prescription to individuals who will never leave prison in their lifetime would be a solution to how much money it costs to house prisoners however it's not even like people get death penalty and it happens soon, they spend ages and have money spent on holding them prior to execution

OP posts:
Aintnothingbutaheartache · 06/09/2018 21:29

puzzle thankfully I have never had to experience the absolute horror that you and your family have had to go through.
I, too, get shouted down, called all sorts etc but I know without a doubt how I feel.
If we don’t have the death penalty surely we can at the very least make sure that prison isn’t a holiday camp.
Again, thoughts with you x

BakedBeans47 · 06/09/2018 22:19

What happened to Stefan K was truly awful but his life was destroyed regardless :( poor guy died only a short time after getting out

user764329056 · 06/09/2018 22:23

An eye for an eye makes us all blind

Aintnothingbutaheartache · 06/09/2018 22:27

Trite user

puzzledlady · 06/09/2018 22:30

@user764329056 when you go through what me and my family have gone through - I dare you to repeat the same. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

user764329056 · 06/09/2018 22:40

Fair enough, I am allowed to express my opinion

Aintnothingbutaheartache · 06/09/2018 22:42

Yes you are user you have rights

UpOnTheDowns · 06/09/2018 23:37

An eye for an eye makes us all blind

This stupid saying again.

Logically, not practising an eye for an eye leaves the innocent blind and the guilty fully-sighted. What a great idea!

puzzledlady · 07/09/2018 07:15

I didn’t actually think people used that saying in real life - the eye for an eye blind thing etc etc. I heard it once in Law and Order and I thought it was a bizarre saying then....

HPLikecraft · 07/09/2018 07:29

"An eye for an eye"

Kind of bored of this cliche on this thread.We don't practise the ancient lex talionis form justice here.
Do the posters quoting this think we should burgle burglars, defraud fraudsters and spray paint the houses of graffiti artists?

SerenDippitty · 07/09/2018 07:30

I thought Gandhi said it, or it’s at least attributed to him.

HPLikecraft · 07/09/2018 07:47

"An eye for an eye" is ancient.

It was Ghandi who said "An eye for an eye makes the whole world go blind" in rejection of it.

Lizzie48 · 07/09/2018 08:15

'Eye for an eye' comes from the Old Testament in the Bible, so it's a Jewish saying.

EthelThePiratesDaughter · 07/09/2018 08:34

Logically, not practising an eye for an eye leaves the innocent blind and the guilty fully-sighted. What a great idea!

It must be much easier living in your world where people can be so easily divided into the guilty and the innocent.

BertrandRussell · 07/09/2018 08:37

“Sorry but unless you 've been in the situation that someone you love has been murdered it's all theory.
If it was me who lost a family member I know I would want the most severe justice and punishment for the offender.”

So would I. That’s why we have a legal system, not summary justice.

UpOnTheDowns · 07/09/2018 11:43

It must be much easier living in your world where people can be so easily divided into the guilty and the innocent.

We have these things called "courts", "juries", even (hope you're sitting down) a whole "justice system". It does all right in making the distinction.

EthelThePiratesDaughter · 07/09/2018 11:52

We have these things called "courts", "juries", even (hope you're sitting down) a whole "justice system". It does all right in making the distinction.

I'm a lawyer.

Gersemi · 07/09/2018 11:52

Does it do all right, UpOnTheDowns? How then do miscarriages of justice occur?

EthelThePiratesDaughter · 07/09/2018 11:54

How then do miscarriages of justice occur?

Probably because judges, juries and everyone else involved in the criminal justice system are people. And nobody is infallible.

UpOnTheDowns · 07/09/2018 12:04

Well, if we have no faith in the human, fallible justice system, how can we trust it to lock people away for life, to adjudicate cases worth millions of pounds, or even to issue parking tickets? We do because it's the best system we've got, and if you're waiting for it to be perfected before we allow it to punish people, then you'll have a very long wait indeed.

mrbob · 07/09/2018 12:04

You all have far too much faith in the judicial system. The people on death row in the USA are a great example of the number of innocent people sentenced to death and the number of wrongful convictions. Murder is a spectrum- how do you decide which ones deserve to die? The 17 year old who grew up in poverty and made some bad decisions and shot someone? The woman who was a victim of domestic violence and planned and killed her husband? (we might agree he deserved it but that is premeditated murder) And how much evidence do you need? If a confession can be wrong. DNA evidence can sometimes be tenuous. Witnesses can be wrong or lying. Unless someone is videoed committing the crime or you have a whole crowd of witnesses I don't think you can ever really be certain

Plus what kind of moral toll does it take on the person that has to do the executions? They have taken someones life. What if they turned out to be innocent? If you were the person who injected those drugs and killed an innocent 22 year old for example how would you feel about yourself then?

mrbob · 07/09/2018 12:06

Well, if we have no faith in the human, fallible justice system, how can we trust it to lock people away for life, to adjudicate cases worth millions of pounds, or even to issue parking tickets? We do because it's the best system we've got, and if you're waiting for it to be perfected before we allow it to punish people, then you'll have a very long wait indeed.

There is a difference in someone paying out 20 quid in error for a parking fine than someone being killed. Hard to take that one back and apologise hey?

araiwa · 07/09/2018 12:09

If youre at the stage of wanting to murder someone, i doubt the punishment if caught has any part of your decision to kill or not.

By the same token, if the punishment for murder was a literal slap on the wrist, i still wouldnt murder anyone

EthelThePiratesDaughter · 07/09/2018 12:41

We do because it's the best system we've got, and if you're waiting for it to be perfected before we allow it to punish people, then you'll have a very long wait indeed.

That is precisely why we allow it to punish people but not to kill people. That and a whole host of other excellent reasons.

Stupomax · 07/09/2018 15:11

Plus what kind of moral toll does it take on the person that has to do the executions? They have taken someones life. What if they turned out to be innocent? If you were the person who injected those drugs and killed an innocent 22 year old for example how would you feel about yourself then?

...and how would you feel if you were on the jury that sent that person to death?

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