The more I think about this subject the more it gets to me, what makes us such a self rightous society that we allow monsters to continue to hurt society. Some people just evil and there is no amount of rehabilitation, reason or non-lethal punishment can change there minds. I believe that some people just want to watch the world burn and get plessure out of doing so, which case should be irradicated from the earth quickly without question. Maby somebody can show some contradictory evidence to why I am wrong, or not.
three strike rule should be modified for violent crimes. instead of three strikes = life in jail, three strikes and you lose your life. if you get three chances and you still present a harmful threat to society, you lose your societal privileges. no wasting taxpayers money on jail, just take em out back and end it.
The problem for me is epistemological. In many cases we aren't sure whether the guy we've got is actually the criminal.
The problem for me is what artificially yet universally recognized and respected entity deserves to apply equal and opposite force (or justice, if it's truly equal and opposite, and by what measurements) through lethal retribution.
once i am satisfied that the justice system and society actually provides the individual with the ability to be himself, and he still is a rotten apple, then yeah, three strikes and your done. I don't think we're there yet. So no I don't currently support the death penalty.
The problem for me is that it is final. What if the executed person was later found to be innocent? Also, ppl on death row usually sit there for 20 years or more so the taxpayer still pays for a lot of incarceration time. Instead of lockdown, why not sentence to hard labour? If you know you'll spend the rest of your life working HARD in harsh conditions would that not be more of a deterrant? Prison should be more of a punishment. No TV, basic food, no association with other inmates and maybe physical punishments for breaking the rules.
Here is the "son of sam", apparantly he had voices in his head telling him to kill people, he is serving six consecutive life sentences for the murder of six people. Why don't we just do this man a favor by ending those little voices in his head permantly that tell him to kill. Or what about Jeffery Dahmer, he had such a calm demeanor that he convinced the police after fonding a 13 year old boy that he only needed rehabilitation, then he went on a murdering spree where he dismembered 17 people and proceded to dismember them, rape there dead bodies and eat them. While he was in jail the second year his fellow inmates in jail ended up killing him with a weight bar while in the gym part of the jail. These men do not deserve jail time.
I knew scooby would say exactly what I thought. I wish you were my roommate or something. We'd get along just fine.
As a human you have rights. When you willingly initiate aggressive acts on another human being, you revoke your own rights. The only thing I don't like about the death penalty is that a lot of the times, I think the "murder" is just. Obviously some people are crazy, but aside from the crazies a lot of the "murderers" were perfectly justified in what they did. The problem with the world is that everyone is conditioned to be so docile, when in reality we need confident, assertive people to make sure that asshats don't get away with things like stealing, rape, etc. I'm not trying to make jail sound easy, but the fact that you can kill someone when you are 20 and live the rest of your life worry free is kind of silly. If I remember correctly one life sentence is 50 years, and a lot of murderers get back-to-back life sentences. Our prisoners get free housing, food, television, etc. at our expense. How fucked up is that? The US justice system is just plain stupid anyways. They view almost all crimes as crimes against the state as opposed to crimes against a victim. Prisoners should be expected to work in terrible conditions for shit wages to pay off what they owe the victim and what they owe to state for food and housing.
Here is an interesting thought...how many murders of innocent men can a society perform, and still feel OK about it? Here's absolute proof that the death penalty causes society to become murderers of convenience, rather than let a crime go unpunished. DNA evidence doesn't lie, except for O.J.Simpson's case. <table id="sand" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr> <td></td> </tr><tr> <td id="cnt_ribbon"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <table id="sandbox" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="468" height="45"> <tbody><tr> <td valign="top" width="100%"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td class="copyright" valign="middle" height="25"> <map name="sendemailfriend"> <area shape="rect" coords="5,5,85,18" href="http://cgi1.usatoday.com/cgi-bin/sendthis.cgi" target="newwindow" onclick="window.open('','newwindow','scrollbars=yes,width=505,height=500,left=5,top=5,resizable=yes')"> <area shape="rect" coords="97,5,235,18" href="https://subscribe.usatoday.com/index.jsp?pub=UT&keycode=YNCB3" target="_blank"> <area shape="rect" coords="247,5,366,18" href="http://email.usatoday.com" target="_blank"> </map></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="copyright" bgcolor="#000000" valign="top" height="1"></td> </tr> <tr> <td id="cnt_datestamp" height="19">04/10/2002 - Updated 10:10 AM ET </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> <td class="copyright" align="right" valign="top"> </td> </tr> </tbody></table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td height="10"></td> </tr><tr> <td id="cnt_sandbox_q1" valign="top"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td id="cnt_sandbox_q2" valign="top"> </td> </tr> <tr> <td id="cnt_sandbox_q3" valign="top"> DNA evidence frees 100th death row inmate By Beth DeFalco and Dennis Wagner, The Arizona Republic <table class="sidebar" align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="190"> <tbody><tr> <td rowspan="4"></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="sidebar" align="right">AP file</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="sidebar">Krone was freed from prison after serving 10 years for a murder he didn't commit.</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> </tr> </tbody></table> PHOENIX - As former death row inmate Ray Krone celebrated his first full day of freedom Tuesday by taking a swim and eating steak, national justice groups used his decade-long ordeal to press for an end to capital punishment. Krone was freed from prison after serving 10 years for a murder he didn't commit. He is the 100th condemned American to be freed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and, as such, instantly emerged as a poster child in the national debate. Krone seemed to revel in that new role, describing his miserable life behind bars, his loss of faith in the justice system, and his belief that capital punishment is wrong except in cases of treason. "It's the final end, it's too late, and it's the ultimate travesty to kill an innocent person," he said. But gallows conversation did not prevent Krone from enjoying his liberty. Amid a flurry of interview requests, he drank margaritas with friends, shopped for clothes, attended a perfunctory court hearing and talked about his inside-out life. He also learned how to use a motel keycard for the first time. And, pale from prison life and sinewy from pounding rocks, took a purging dive into the pool, then shrieked at the chilly water. "I don't think about rebuilding," Krone said earlier. "I think about starting over. I have a brand-new life, brand-new dreams.. .. I don't want to be negative, vengeful or angry. I don't have time for that." Krone was accused of killing and sexually assaulting Phoenix bartender Kim Ancona in 1991. The death sentence was based largely on testimony by a dental expert who matched bite marks on the victim with Krone's teeth. After that conviction was overturned, Krone was found guilty a second time and sentenced to life. A few weeks ago, new DNA testing revealed that saliva on the victim's tank top belonged not to Krone, but to Kenneth Phillips, 36, who is serving prison time for an unrelated sex crime. "They better hang onto him, hold him and charge him," Ancona's mother, Patricia Gasman, said of Phillips. "He deserves the death penalty for his pedophile cases alone." Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley agreed to free Krone on Monday, with apologies. Now, the 45-year-old former postal worker cannot avoid his symbolic place in the death-penalty debate any more than he could have escaped prison. In Washington, D.C., Justice Project Executive Director Wayne Smith described the Krone case as a "shameful milestone" in America's death-penalty saga. At the Death Penalty Information Center, also in the nation's capital, Executive Director Richard Dieter said the injustice "underscores the errors that can be made and the risks of the death penalty." </td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
when a person can be proven guilty scientifically (DNA, fingerprints, voice recognition, etc), and all the stupid, expensive legal loopholes can be closed, the guilty beyond any doubt, then by all means, tak ethem out back and shoot them. For rapists, child abusers they deserve tourture and then death
That's really the biggest problem with the death penalty. But that being said, I don't think we should ever limit ourselves from the death penalty like many countries have had. The death penalty should simply be reserved for the most heinous crimes, where the criminal does not have the capacity for rehabilitation and the legal system has overwhelming evidence of guilt. Our current legal system simply has too many holes.
it's completely insane how our justice system works. if the prison's are getting a little crowded ya know what we do? we paroll a few rapists and child molesters because they have been "corrected". shit, get these men back to their lives! we've got pot growers to lock up! the problem with capital punishment in my opinion is the fact that much of the time people are getting away with flimsy evidence that's only in the court room because an "expert" brought it there. like the case above me where the guy got put away when his bite profile "matched" with the bite marks on a victim. REAL DNA evidence overturned the case. i'll give an example of a just law system. my father was a pilot and told me this story. he was in Egypt walking through the local markets and witnessed a commotion. a man had been caught stealing, and within moments they were dragging the man into the open to have his hand cut off! think petty theft rate would drop if you could have your hand lobbed off rather than your wrist slapped? i think there should be varying degrees of crime and punishment, but nothing near as ludicrous as what we have in place now. i don't think people should lie, cheat, steal, or kill. liars and cheats should be beaten with a stick, thieves their hands taken, and murderers put to death.
Speaking of " Do we have the right guy?" David Richard Berkowitz (born June 1, 1953), also known as the .44 Caliber Killer and the Son of Sam, is an American serial killer and arsonist. Shortly after his arrest in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to killing six people and wounding seven others in the course of eight shootings in New York City between 1976 and 1977. He has been imprisoned for the crimes since 1977. His crimes had terrorized New York for a year. Berkowitz subsequently claimed that he was commanded to kill by a demon who possessed his neighbor's dog. Berkowitz later amended his confession to claim he was the shooter in only two incidents, personally killing three people and wounding a fourth. The other victims were killed, Berkowitz claimed, by members of a violent Satanic cult of which he was a member. Though he remains the only person charged with or convicted of the shootings, some law enforcement authorities argue that Berkowitz's claims are credible: according to John Hockenberry<sup id="cite_ref-hockenberry_0-0" class="reference">[1]</sup> of MSNBC, many officials involved in the original "Son of Sam" case suspected that more than one person was committing the murders. Hockenberry also reports that the Son of Sam case was reopened in 1996 and, as of 2004, it was still considered open. He was sentenced on June 12, 1978 to six life sentences in prison for the murders, making his maximum term 365 years. He was first imprisoned at the Attica Correctional Facility. In 1987, Berkowitz became a born again Christian in prison. According to his personal testimony, his moment of conversion occurred after reading Psalm 34:6 from a Gideon's Pocket Testament Bible given to him by a fellow inmate.<sup id="cite_ref-53" class="reference">[54]</sup> In the same testimony, he stated that his obsession with and heavy involvement in the occult played a major role in the Son of Sam murders. In March 2002, Berkowitz sent a letter to New York Governor George Pataki asking that his parole hearing be canceled, stating: "In all honesty, I believe that I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life. I have, with God's help, long ago come to terms with my situation and I have accepted my punishment."<sup id="cite_ref-54" class="reference">[55]</sup> In June 2004, he was denied a second parole hearing after he stated that he did not want one. The parole board saw that he had a good record in the prison programs, but decided that the brutality of his crimes called for him to stay imprisoned. In July 2006, the board once again denied parole on similar grounds, with Berkowitz not in attendance at the hearing. He is very involved in prison ministry and regularly counsels troubled inmates. This is the problem with life sentences, they can be institutionalized, and start liking it in there! Where's the punishment factor in that? Son Of Sam, a born again christian? I guess he'll be wanting to get into into heaven now...
How do we punish our worst criminals, we give them a place to sleep, eat and relax for the rest of there lives, at the cost to the rest of us, system is fucked up IMO.