U.S. Court Bans Death Penalty

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As much as I hate kiddie fiddlers, I can't help but applaud the decision to remove one more capital crime from the statute books of the country that murders more of its own people than any other other country in the world apart from (the largest totalitarian dictatorship) China.

Predictably, Republican presidential candidate described the ruling as: "an assault on law enforcement's efforts to punish these heinous felons for the most despicable crime"

Less predictably, Barack Obama said he disagreed with the ruling.... in a statement reeking of populism he said: "Had the Supreme Court said, 'We want to constrain the abilities of states to do this to make sure that it's done in a careful and appropriate way,' that would have been one thing. But it basically had a blanket prohibition and I disagree with that decision"

Although the last execution for rape was over 40 years ago, two men in Louisiana are were on death row for raping children, and it appears that their sentences will now have to be reviewed.

The article points out that in most states that still use the death penalty, only murder remains as a capital offence, whereas 4 of the 5 remaining states that have child rape are southern states.... the ACLU summed up why this may be

.

imo if the child is under the age of 12 1st strike jail 2nd strike jail and cut off his willie and if there is a 3rd death now for over the age of 12 its a bit more complicated and the penalties depend on the case

Where does the arbitrary 12 age come in? In other parts of the world girls that age and younger are getting married and having children. Personally I'm not in favour of the death penalty for anything however heinous but them I'm a pinko liberal commie scumbag.

well, it's more a question of the ever eroding state rights than anything, imnsho

the age old question of whether or not death is cruel and unusual as pertains to our constitution.

barbaric, perhaps, inneffective as a deterent, oh yeah. unconstitutional, I don't think so.

after all, anyone did that to my kid, i'd kill them in the most painful way. stab them in the chest just deep enough to pop the chest cavity but leave the lung in tact, you can watch them choke to death slowly. could take hours. hmmm

i mean, come on, you know you'd do the same

Seeing as we've had the debate over the death penalty before I shan't pick the scab off and start it all again. All I'll say is that in doing this, the Americans have just taken away another deterrent for an abhorrent act, as if the fuckers need any more encouraging..

Undoubtedly... However, there is a clear distinction between revenge and justice. In a civilised, modern, progressive society, we have justice not revenge. We don't chop hands off, gouge eyes out, flog to death or stone people.

Unfortunately some states still think it's OK murder people by poisoning them, gassing them or wiring them up to the mains... this is not justice, it is barbaric retribution, and it has no place in a civilised society.


Capital punishment is absolutely no deterrent. linky thingy-ma-bob

I know we've been over this before but if you look at it subjectively; if something is a deterrent for some, it mightn't be to others and vice-versa, so to say that the death penalty is 'absolutely no deterrent' is a sweeping generalisation based upon the utterly barmy notion that you 'know' everyone and are aware what would deter them from committing a crime.

Survival is the very basest of human instincts, and the loss of ones life is the ultimate deterrent. The folk that oppose the death penalty will keep trotting out their 'statistics' but it's worth noting that there have been some quite interesting findings to the contrary:





Full story here.

PDF of Washington Post article

This post has been edited by m15hun: Jun 29 2008, 05:35 AM

Using that logic, saying that capital punishment IS a deterrent, is equally a sweeping generalisation. The lack of deterrence is not based on some notional idea of what some people may or may not do, its based on the weight of evidence.


Now here, we really are talking about notional concepts being used as facts.... according to the article, each execution prevents 5 murders, whilst each commuted sentence adds 5. Really, if that were the case, states without capital punishment (or states who have it but no longer practice it) would have higher murder rates per capita. Unfortunately for the credibility of this report, the exact opposite is the case.

In any case, even if there were some provable deterrent (for the sake of argument) that does not mean the state should still be killing its own citizens.... after all, poking peoples eyes out or hacking off their hands may be a deterrent, but would you really want to live in a country that operate a medieval justice system? Saudi Arabia and other Sharia like legal systems are things we should be holding up as examples of what not to be like

This post has been edited by yourmercifulgod: Jun 29 2008, 11:19 AM

The findings of that study are widely accepted in circles of statisticians and economists as being proof that the death penalty is a deterrent. I happen to agree.

I also agree that it would be an equally sweeping generalisation to say that the death penalty is a 'total' deterrent, but that isn't what I said. What I was getting at was sort of 'horses for courses' if you like. When a person is talking about the most heinous crimes every possible deterrent should be employed to dissuade potential wrong-doers, up to and including the possibility that you may lose your life.

It isn't a case of 'oh, he's a murderer. Let's hack his head off' though, is it? It's a legal trial, followed by appeal where necessary with the Judge able to pass the death sentence, it isn't written in stone that he must. But for certain crimes I think it's the only fitting judgement.

This post has been edited by m15hun: Jun 29 2008, 09:26 PM

You will notice that the article was also widely criticised, and has failed to secure publication in anything but marginal journals. It is not surprising when you consider the weight of evidence readily points to the opposite conclusion.


So you advocate horribly torturing to death convicted killers? Perhaps we should return to doing it in public... we could draw out their entrails and slice off their genitals as they scream for mercy... after we cast their nethers into the brazier in front of their eyes (and the baying mob) we could finish them off by quartering them and displaying their dismembered body parts around town.

... Or we could just try and move on from the lowbrow medieval mindset and act like civilised human beings.

Ah the speedy descent into the flagrantly ridiculous. How I've missed both you and LPP, YMG.

Well, it's my job to make people feel at home here, innit.