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> One of the most crucial aspects of the death penalty is that it is reserved for people that physically kill other human beings. I disagree with this. It shou
by evanpw 11y ago
> One of the most crucial aspects of the death penalty is that it is reserved for people that physically kill other human beings.
I disagree with this. It shouldn't matter whether your murder weapon is a baseball bat or a person you've hired, in both cases you're equally guilty. It's similar to the case of a bomber: the fact that they didn't personally perform a violent act, just built a machine, doesn't absolve them of guilt. (For the record, I don't support the death penalty, but I think that murder and hiring a hitman should carry the same penalty).
> making life in prison a far worse punishment than the death penalty
Your second paragraph seems to contradict itself. If life in prison is worse than the death penalty, then the possibility of wrongful convictions should make the death penalty more appealing, since some of those we imprison for life will be innocent.
- downandout 11y ago> the possibility of wrongful convictions should make the death penalty more appealing Did you really just say that? If someone is locked away and their conviction is overturned, we can always let them out. However, we cannot dig them up after we kill them.
- celticninja 11y agoWell we can dig them up but that really doesn't help the situation.
- evanpw 11y agoTrue, but that only matters if their conviction actually does get overturned, which is pretty rare. And even then, if you get exonerated after 30-40 years, most of the damage is already done. I'm actually trying to disagree with the statement that the death penalty is more humane than life in prison. If you assume that's true, one consequence is that we should prefer to execute innocent people rather than imprison them for life. If you think that conclusion is absurd (like I do), then you should reconsider the original statement.