Reason +1; NM abolishes the death penalty.Follow

Call me a realist if you like, but we are never going to stop people killing each other, or crime or suffering or violence or predudice or discrimination.

They will always be part of society.

Realism is accepting the forces that govern our lives and recognizing that we cannot change some of them, while accepting that they are still bad. What you are is not a realist. You are not accepting necessary conclusions; you are embracing them.



Except for the problem of state sponsored murder

And? There's always going to be traces of contaminants in my drinking water, but doesn't mean we stop building water filtration plants. I can see you disagreeing with Elinda's choice of method, but I don't see how you can believe that incremental changes don't matter.

Edited, Mar 19th 2009 7:18am by Allegory

The terrible analogy was in reference to your statement about society. I'm not sure how you got rehabilitating criminals out of that. Just because we can't make society perfect doesn't mean we can't make it better.

But you're paying either way. You are either paying to have him locked up for life or you are paying, a good deal more, to have him killed. I know you make think it makes a difference how your money is spent, but it doesn't. What happens to him in no way affects what happens to you. The only thing that affects you here is how much money you have after everything is said and done, and I'd always choose to have more money.

You're saying all of this with the assumption that we can know whether someone is guilty. Sure if we absolute know someone is guilty there's no reason for twenty appeals, heck there's no reason for even one appeal.

We have appellate courts for a reason. If you think that process is flawed then take your argument then, but we cannot just arbitrarily decide to ignore the appeals process arbitrarily.

I've babbled enough about it in the past. Bottom-lining my opinion:

Capital punishment costs more, has no effect on deterrence and has a chance of unfixable failure. Even two out of those three should make it a non-starter. I can't understand why anyone would support it except to ********** the part of their reptile brain which calls out for blood to the exclusion of rationality.

How?? Seriously, how does him dying, as opposed to spending the rest of his life in a tiny cell alone, contribute to making society a better place?

We've already established life imprisonment is cheaper. Yes it would be cheaper if the appeals process were shortened, but that isn't going to happen, so it is still more expensive.

If you can prove that prisoners sentenced with capital punishment are a greater danger to guards than those imprisoned for life, then go ahead. If you can't, then don't speculate.

The alternative being compared here is life imprisonment. He's not getting out either way.

Aren't you starting to get a little petty? When was the last time you read a tabloid about a still convicted criminal? Don't they usually run stories about Paris Hilton's ******?

As little sense as this sentence makes, we've already established the relative costs.

We've already done so. It's significantly more expensive to kill him, and it reinforces a flawed system. Society benefits the most by not killing him.

Based on the fact I wouldn't support it unless it was ABSOLUTE PROOF and 1 Appeal against sentance and the fact that It will never be reintroduced in the UK anyway, I fail to see how you "It will be more expencive" holds any water. How can you attack a dead person, really how?
Life in the UK legal system in not life. The average sentence is about 15 years before the first parole hearing, there is alsways a chance of release or escape. On 28 March 2007, The Sun began publishing transcripts of Huntley's taped confession. Huntley appears in the UK press on a regular basis, more so than some polictians.On 14 September 2005 Huntley was scalded with boiling water when another inmate, Mark Hobson (serving life for a 2004 quadruple murder in Yorkshire), attacked him. Huntley alleged that the prison authorities failed in their duty of care towards him, and launched a claim for £15,000 compensation. Huntley was reportedly awarded £2,500 in legal aid to pursue this claim.
If he had 1 appeal against the death sentance and been killed 6 months later it would already have cost less money than the trial against the guy convicted of injuring him, the expence of holding him in a high security prison for 6 years and the medical treatment of three failed suicide attempts, and compensation and legal aid awarded to him for the spurious compensation claim.

You weren't using sarcasm. :P


But the question wasn't when it's suited, the question was what it accomplishes.

If you had "ABSOLUTE PROOF" why do you need an appeal process?

The answer is that absolute proof is unattainable.

It's all a sliding scale anyway. The quicker and cheaper the appeals process, the more innocent people get executed.


Wouldn't it be more logical to fix that flaw in the system, rather than introducing a new flawed and drastic measure?



Doesn't change the fact that it's the pettiest of petty complaints.

Also want to add that we have a lengthy appeal process because, at least in the US, our justice system is based on the philosophy that it's better to let 10 guilty men go free than to convict 1 innocent man. And not just in sentencing appeals, it infuses every aspect of the system. It's about sacrificing security for freedom. So, really it boils down to the exact same debate as a million other political issues.

This is an excellent point. While the Innocence Project has mainly been concerned with cases in which available DNA can and does exonerate people who were wrongly convicted, there are many, many cases out there where DNA plays no part: shootings, for example.

The automatic appeals process generally only addresses decisions made in the courtroom. Did a judge fairly weigh an objection? Was counsel competent? Was the jury empaneled appropriately, and did they execute their duty fairly and faithfully?

The automatic death penalty appeals process generally does NOT re-examine evidence and witness statements. It specifically does not.

If you're convicted of a crime and there was evidence presented at trial that might have exonerated you (or if there should have been said evidence and it was withheld by the prosecution), you can appeal, yourself, on those grounds if you know about it. If your court-appointed attorney wants to and is competent enough to take the time to do so on your behalf. But it won't happen automatically. There's no review board oversight for those cases.

The automatic appeals process is a procedural review, only.