From the article: Pros & Cons of the Death Penalty
Why should, or shouldn't, the U.S. join the vast majority of the world community in abolishing the death penalty? Share Your Thoughts
From a Victim of Violent Crime
- My husband was killed by a monster who shot seven people prior to shooting my husband. The only reason the other seven people survived was because this monster was a “poor shot”. This monster had a criminal record that started with petty crimes at age 11 and progressed to worse crimes as he aged. This monster will now live out his life behind bars. He will receive three meals a day, health care, recreation, and always a chance at escape. His life, however long, will in part be supported by my tax dollars. I will spend the rest of my life supporting a monster who took my husband and cost my child (I was four months pregnant when he was killed) his father. This monster should be put to death! He is not human. I am a Christian and I do not believe that anyone who would take the life of another could possibly be human. These monsters should not be afforded the privileges of a human. Cruel and Unusual is NOT putting down the monsters but making innocents support the monsters who hurt them!!
- —Guest Tiffany
No One Seems To Get It...
- The death penalty should be considered the pragmatic execution of a serial murderer. Its purpose should be to ensure that the convicted cannot commit murder again. Its purpose should not be primarily a deterrent, nor punishment. Those who commit 1st degree murder should be defined as those who have relinquished their 'unalienable' rights by their actions, much as members of the armed forces sacrifice theirs upon volunteering for service. Secondly, those prosecutors, judges, and executors must also be held accountable for the execution of an innocent person. Those willing to dole out death must be voluntarily willing to accept their own. Our biggest issue with punishment is that simple incarceration is obviously not a strong enough rehabilitative tool. Robert Heinlein, the science fiction writer, once wrote that if it's not cruel or unusual, it's not punishment.
- —Guest TheTravellingHermit
You are in error
- All arguments against the death penalty are either false or the pro death penalty positions are stronger.
- —Guest Dudley Sharp
NO!!!!!!!!
- You don't understand: the death penalty is to deter people from wrong and unjust murder. Only a handful of inocents have been executed, and that will not happen again!
- —Guest kkk assassin
death penalty
- As a Christian nation, we need to abolish the death penalty. It should not be an eye for an eye. Some people that are put to death are innocent.People can be rehabilitated. We need to be doing more rehab and less killing.
- —Guest dorothy savice
Yo
- We studied Stanley Tookie Williams in class and I reckon he was fully reformed. Although he did not actually admit he killed those people, he showed major signs of rehabilitation, and what he achieved in one life time was amazing. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a fool to let him die. He could have easily let him off death row and maybe to a less harsh punishment as 'Tookie' had "learnt his leason" and reformed in the time he had left. Therefore, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger was totally unprofessional in his decision to go ahead with the "legal murder" of Stanley Tookie Williams.
- —Guest harri
Did any of you consider
- Did anyone consider that by enforcing the death penalty, we would become no better than the murderers and other criminals that we sentence to such an inhuman punishment? And who says that the victims hold any grudge against the killers? I know people that, if they were murdered, they would harbor no animosity nor will of destruction towards their killer. What about the innocents that society wrongfully puts on death row? I'm sure that, just like in other cases, there are those that are truly innocent. Think back to the Salem Witch Trials. Many innocent people were hung for crimes they did not commit, but were found by society to be guilty regardless. We try and play God all the time, especially those that profess atheism. Just before they electrocuted people they would say, "May God have mercy on your soul." as if they knew what God wanted. Did they never read the story of Cain and Abel? I'm not sure whether those stories are true or not, but I do know that they hold moral value.
- —Guest Aubrey
BECAUSE
- Did you know that there is still a woman on death row trying to prove her innocence? And that there could there be others? AND the gas chamber? Hanging? That's just wrong.
- —Guest Ariana
