4 ms·

This is the entire reason people petition against the death penalty. And while I've said I can see the need for capital punishment, as a juror I would never sen

by delinka 14y ago

This is the entire reason people petition against the death penalty. And while I've said I can see the need for capital punishment, as a juror I would never sentence someone to death because mistakes happen, the wrong people are accused, evidence gets fucked (accidentally, intentionally), etc. The mistake isn't worth someone's life.

asto 14y ago
The death penalty is required. The judiciary just needs to have conclusive proof of the crime. For example, right now, in one of India's jails lies a man named Ajmal Kasab. He is one of the terrorists involved in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. He was caught on tape mercilessly killing people with his AK47. If you do away with the death penalty entirely, how do you execute this fucker and others like him? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks Edit: A lot of people asking similar questions. So I'll just answer them here. Being identified by eye-witnesses and being caught on camera are not the same thing. People make mistakes while remembering. Cameras don't. Further, he was apprehended by the army/police in the middle of his killing spree. There is NO WAY it was someone else. Handing him a life imprisonment just puts the system at risk. It will just lead to terrorists resorting to kidnap to release him as has been done in the past. A well known example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814
- corin_ 14y ago
  How do you execute him - you don't. Every person ever convicted is, in theory, because there was enough conclusive proof. Mistakes will always happen.
- LinaLauneBaer 14y ago
  Why do you see execution as the only option here?
- nilved 14y ago
  > If you do away with the death penalty entirely, how do you execute this fucker and others like him? what
- jstabbac 14y ago
  This should be a contreversal comment, so I'm going to say now that I'm just posting this rebuttal and not getting into an e-argument. The criminal system isn't for punishment. It's for reform. It's not to 'get back' at people, it's to help integrate people back into society and act as a deterrent to stop crime in the first place. You're not trying to 'execute this fucker and others like him', you're trying to figure out what's wrong, how you can reform (if possible), and deter other crimes like it. If you're just executing it's a hell of a deterrence, but you're not reforming at all. Remember the Oslo masscare? Read up on the perpetrator and his sentence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
  - asto 14y ago
    If I were king of the world, I wouldn't sentence Anders to death either. It's sad that he turned out a madman and did what he did but surely you can't kill people who are mentally ill for being so. There's a big difference between somebody who's medically declared insane and a member of a terrorist organisation who killed people as his masters wanted for the sole purpose of creating terror.
- luser001 14y ago
  A bedrock principle of a civilized society is that the price to be paid to ensure that no innocent is ever falsely convicted, is that some guilty might be acquitted. The death penalty is the ultimate irreversible penalty. Don't you think it's better to give people life in prison instead of death. You should read up about the death penalty as a deterrent. Do you really think Ajmal expected to even get out of the mission alive? Do you think he didn't know about the death penalty if he managed to escape alive.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  Being caught on tape or identified by an eyewitness isn't conclusive evidence of guilt. The guy in this article who was wrongly executed looked almost exactly like the person who actually committed the murder.
- RedwoodCity 14y ago
  Would you rather have him claim to die as a marytr and have his friends and family claim he is in heaven with his 70 virgins. His rotting in prison sends a stronger symbol that the state can keep a man down. At least in prison he can be humaliated rather than elevated to the level of a hero. Its one thing to die a hero another to sit in a cell for forty years in your own filth.
- sophacles 14y ago
  Yeah! To show this guy that killing is wrong, we'll kill him!
- mikeash 14y ago
  Keep him in jail for life. Have a solid policy of not negotiating with terrorists. (Kidnap victims should be immediately considered murdered, with their salvation a potential bonus of whatever operation you carry out to resolve it, not an overriding goal.) Demonstrate that policy resolutely.
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    Do you really believe that type of policy could be instituted in the real world? If you were responsible for the decision and it was your kid kidnapped, would you consider her dead? The biological imperative to protect one's offspring is too strong for that (much less the imperative for politicians to CYA). You may argue that it is a false dichotomy, but I disagree, because the people who will kill to get their compadres released will adjust their tactics until they find the lever that works.
    - mikeash 14y ago
      There's a reason we specifically don't let the relatives of victims make choices here. This "you would never accept this policy if it were your child" argument is really irritating. No, I wouldn't, and that has no bearing whatsoever on the merits of the policy. I agree that it would probably be fairly tough to institute in a democratic country. But I think it could be doable in a reasonably (but realistically!) rational country. The long-term effect should be a vast reduction in the quantity of kidnappings, since you render them ineffectual. Such policies are already implemented sporadically. Look at various navies' responses to Somali pirates and their hostage-taking, or the way the US negotiates (or, rather, doesn't) with the occasional terrorist who kidnaps a US citizen and threatens to behead them.
- qeorge 14y ago
  Your thesis is that without the death penalty there would be more Ajmal Kasabs. That there are would-be-terrorists who don't act because of the death penalty. To me, that's absurd on its face. Such persons are beyond reason. Don't forget, amongst this group are suicide bombers. In the U.S. at least, its widely accepted that the death penalty is not a deterrent for murder, much less terrorism.[1] [1]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pd...)
- rohit89 14y ago
  To be honest, sometimes I find the death penalty to be an easy way out for the criminal. As for Ajmal, I wouldn't want him to be executed simply because that is probably what he expected.
typicalrunt 14y ago
Your opinions on capital punishment don't have to be mutually exclusive. I firmly believe that some people have to pay the ultimate price for their deeds, but I insist that these people should have so much evidence pointing them to having done the act that there is no possible way that they could be innocent. IMHO, capital punishment should be so rare that it makes the news, and also sets a deterrent for future criminals wishing to do something similar.
- cryptoz 14y ago
  Before responding to you directly, I'll say this: Killing is always wrong and therefore the death penalty is always wrong. > I firmly believe that some people have to pay the ultimate price for their deeds, but I insist that these people should have so much evidence pointing them to having done the act that there is no possible way that they could be innocent. I would say that condition is 100% impossible to meet, and would present that as an argument against the death penalty. > also sets a deterrent for future criminals wishing to do something similar. This does not exist. At least, it has not been reliably shown that this exists. The intensity of the punishment for a crime has not been shown to correlate with the number of criminals committing the crime. There have been studies that show both results (that increasing punishment decreases future crime, and that it doesn't). You cannot base real ideas on the assumption that the death penalty will deter potential future murders. There's no reason to believe that's the case.
  - typicalrunt 14y ago
    I upvoted you for your reply. I appreciate that you didn't downvote me for something you read that you don't agree with. I would say that condition is 100% impossible to meet, and would present that as an argument against the death penalty. Exactly my point. So it'd be so rare that you'd never hear of it happening. Regardless of people's moral/religious/practical stance on capital punishment, it is never a black and white issue. If anything, there exists only a grey area. I can always find someone who vehemently disagrees with capital punishment, but then makes exceptions to the rule in the most heinous of violations (killing of family, children, cultures). My Google skillz are failing me but there is a famous quote from a judge ruling on obscenity laws. It went something like: "I know obscenity when I see it". For me, this is the same issue with capital punishment. The worst part is that you can't write laws based on that type of subjective judgement.
citricsquid 14y ago
Not entirely true, just as many people oppose the death penalty because killing is wrong as people oppose it because mistakes happen. I personally do not agree with the death penalty (and live in a country without it) not because mistakes happen because murder is wrong, whether it's state sponsored or not. The fact that mistakes do happen just makes it even more ludicrous to me that ANYONE supports the death penalty.
why-el 14y ago
I agree with you, but I can think of another reason to petition against the death penalty besides mistakes. I don't think we should grant that kind of power to states because they tend to misuse it. This is more apparent in less democratic states, where the death penalty is an easy means to silence opposition. With that said, the US is surprisingly slow in abolishing this horrendous practice, especially if you consider this graph in this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country#Capital_punishment_in_the_world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_co...
troels 14y ago
This is the entire reason people petition against the death penalty. No, it's not.

by delinka 14y ago

asto 14y ago

The death penalty is required. The judiciary just needs to have conclusive proof of the crime. For example, right now, in one of India's jails lies a man named Ajmal Kasab. He is one of the terrorists involved in the 26/11 attack on Mumbai. He was caught on tape mercilessly killing people with his AK47. If you do away with the death penalty entirely, how do you execute this fucker and others like him? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Mumbai_attacks Edit: A lot of people asking similar questions. So I'll just answer them here. Being identified by eye-witnesses and being caught on camera are not the same thing. People make mistakes while remembering. Cameras don't. Further, he was apprehended by the army/police in the middle of his killing spree. There is NO WAY it was someone else. Handing him a life imprisonment just puts the system at risk. It will just lead to terrorists resorting to kidnap to release him as has been done in the past. A well known example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814

corin_ 14y ago
How do you execute him - you don't. Every person ever convicted is, in theory, because there was enough conclusive proof. Mistakes will always happen.
LinaLauneBaer 14y ago
Why do you see execution as the only option here?
nilved 14y ago
> If you do away with the death penalty entirely, how do you execute this fucker and others like him? what
jstabbac 14y ago
This should be a contreversal comment, so I'm going to say now that I'm just posting this rebuttal and not getting into an e-argument. The criminal system isn't for punishment. It's for reform. It's not to 'get back' at people, it's to help integrate people back into society and act as a deterrent to stop crime in the first place. You're not trying to 'execute this fucker and others like him', you're trying to figure out what's wrong, how you can reform (if possible), and deter other crimes like it. If you're just executing it's a hell of a deterrence, but you're not reforming at all. Remember the Oslo masscare? Read up on the perpetrator and his sentence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
- asto 14y ago
  If I were king of the world, I wouldn't sentence Anders to death either. It's sad that he turned out a madman and did what he did but surely you can't kill people who are mentally ill for being so. There's a big difference between somebody who's medically declared insane and a member of a terrorist organisation who killed people as his masters wanted for the sole purpose of creating terror.
luser001 14y ago
A bedrock principle of a civilized society is that the price to be paid to ensure that no innocent is ever falsely convicted, is that some guilty might be acquitted. The death penalty is the ultimate irreversible penalty. Don't you think it's better to give people life in prison instead of death. You should read up about the death penalty as a deterrent. Do you really think Ajmal expected to even get out of the mission alive? Do you think he didn't know about the death penalty if he managed to escape alive.
greenyoda 14y ago
Being caught on tape or identified by an eyewitness isn't conclusive evidence of guilt. The guy in this article who was wrongly executed looked almost exactly like the person who actually committed the murder.
RedwoodCity 14y ago
Would you rather have him claim to die as a marytr and have his friends and family claim he is in heaven with his 70 virgins. His rotting in prison sends a stronger symbol that the state can keep a man down. At least in prison he can be humaliated rather than elevated to the level of a hero. Its one thing to die a hero another to sit in a cell for forty years in your own filth.
sophacles 14y ago
Yeah! To show this guy that killing is wrong, we'll kill him!
mikeash 14y ago
Keep him in jail for life. Have a solid policy of not negotiating with terrorists. (Kidnap victims should be immediately considered murdered, with their salvation a potential bonus of whatever operation you carry out to resolve it, not an overriding goal.) Demonstrate that policy resolutely.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Do you really believe that type of policy could be instituted in the real world? If you were responsible for the decision and it was your kid kidnapped, would you consider her dead? The biological imperative to protect one's offspring is too strong for that (much less the imperative for politicians to CYA). You may argue that it is a false dichotomy, but I disagree, because the people who will kill to get their compadres released will adjust their tactics until they find the lever that works.
  - mikeash 14y ago
    There's a reason we specifically don't let the relatives of victims make choices here. This "you would never accept this policy if it were your child" argument is really irritating. No, I wouldn't, and that has no bearing whatsoever on the merits of the policy. I agree that it would probably be fairly tough to institute in a democratic country. But I think it could be doable in a reasonably (but realistically!) rational country. The long-term effect should be a vast reduction in the quantity of kidnappings, since you render them ineffectual. Such policies are already implemented sporadically. Look at various navies' responses to Somali pirates and their hostage-taking, or the way the US negotiates (or, rather, doesn't) with the occasional terrorist who kidnaps a US citizen and threatens to behead them.
qeorge 14y ago
Your thesis is that without the death penalty there would be more Ajmal Kasabs. That there are would-be-terrorists who don't act because of the death penalty. To me, that's absurd on its face. Such persons are beyond reason. Don't forget, amongst this group are suicide bombers. In the U.S. at least, its widely accepted that the death penalty is not a deterrent for murder, much less terrorism.[1] [1]http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pdf http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/files/DeterrenceStudy2009.pd...)
rohit89 14y ago
To be honest, sometimes I find the death penalty to be an easy way out for the criminal. As for Ajmal, I wouldn't want him to be executed simply because that is probably what he expected.

typicalrunt 14y ago

Your opinions on capital punishment don't have to be mutually exclusive. I firmly believe that some people have to pay the ultimate price for their deeds, but I insist that these people should have so much evidence pointing them to having done the act that there is no possible way that they could be innocent. IMHO, capital punishment should be so rare that it makes the news, and also sets a deterrent for future criminals wishing to do something similar.

cryptoz 14y ago
Before responding to you directly, I'll say this: Killing is always wrong and therefore the death penalty is always wrong. > I firmly believe that some people have to pay the ultimate price for their deeds, but I insist that these people should have so much evidence pointing them to having done the act that there is no possible way that they could be innocent. I would say that condition is 100% impossible to meet, and would present that as an argument against the death penalty. > also sets a deterrent for future criminals wishing to do something similar. This does not exist. At least, it has not been reliably shown that this exists. The intensity of the punishment for a crime has not been shown to correlate with the number of criminals committing the crime. There have been studies that show both results (that increasing punishment decreases future crime, and that it doesn't). You cannot base real ideas on the assumption that the death penalty will deter potential future murders. There's no reason to believe that's the case.
- typicalrunt 14y ago
  I upvoted you for your reply. I appreciate that you didn't downvote me for something you read that you don't agree with. I would say that condition is 100% impossible to meet, and would present that as an argument against the death penalty. Exactly my point. So it'd be so rare that you'd never hear of it happening. Regardless of people's moral/religious/practical stance on capital punishment, it is never a black and white issue. If anything, there exists only a grey area. I can always find someone who vehemently disagrees with capital punishment, but then makes exceptions to the rule in the most heinous of violations (killing of family, children, cultures). My Google skillz are failing me but there is a famous quote from a judge ruling on obscenity laws. It went something like: "I know obscenity when I see it". For me, this is the same issue with capital punishment. The worst part is that you can't write laws based on that type of subjective judgement.

citricsquid 14y ago

Not entirely true, just as many people oppose the death penalty because killing is wrong as people oppose it because mistakes happen. I personally do not agree with the death penalty (and live in a country without it) not because mistakes happen because murder is wrong, whether it's state sponsored or not. The fact that mistakes do happen just makes it even more ludicrous to me that ANYONE supports the death penalty.

why-el 14y ago

I agree with you, but I can think of another reason to petition against the death penalty besides mistakes. I don't think we should grant that kind of power to states because they tend to misuse it. This is more apparent in less democratic states, where the death penalty is an easy means to silence opposition. With that said, the US is surprisingly slow in abolishing this horrendous practice, especially if you consider this graph in this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_country#Capital_punishment_in_the_world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_capital_punishment_by_co...

troels 14y ago

This is the entire reason people petition against the death penalty. No, it's not.