Abolish the death penalty

[Saz]

[exploited]

What a barbaric custom. Hopefully we will see it abolished nation-wide in a few short years.

[John Galt]

i didn't read the whole thing but he shot someone in the face for a robbery, after she complied and gave him money. he deserves the rope. it would be inhumane to not give him a punishment like that. he's no animal, he's a human being, and human beings have a right to be punished

it also highlights something that is used by lawyers all over the place, taking the death penalty off the table in exchange for a plea. this is often done for less open and shut cases, but in something like this, it would be criminal not to execute this man. i mean, it's on video. a state that didn't do it i do not think is a state that has the welfare of its citizens in mind. but if you abolished it you not have removed a tool for justice which is used in many more instances than just when it is actually employed in an execution

[spacemonkey]

Free room and board for life is not adequate punishment for killers. If anything, it needs expanded and put on the fast track.

[Saz]

[NAB]

If we can't use the death penalty, force him to read that long-assed post on an iPad.

[ToddStarnes]

[Gnostic]

there are two sides of the coin on this for me. on one, yes, the death penalty is an outdated, brutal "custom" of control for totalitarian states, or socially backward countries like the US with sizeable, basically uneducated citizens that support it. but I'll leave the genealogy behind it alone here for now, Michel foucaults "discipline and punish" is an excellent essay on all that. put very simply, its not moral nor ethical to put people to death for any crime, especially those who don't confess. as the old saying goes, it makes no sense to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong. circular logic, and it's no deterrent, its only worth is in pure retribution and revenge, emotional satisfaction for vindictive victims families who want to see blood for blood.
that said, the flip side is that I'm not buying for a second any pleas for compassion for this scumbucket psychopath. oh, he has a low IQ? that didn't seem to prevent him from having enough intelligence to figure out how to get a gun, use a gun, use drugs, and wear a doo rag in the course of the robbery to attempt to conceal identity. so his so called mental handicaps seem rather selective. I'm also not buying any of the other half baked, racially tinged excuses about his past and bad luck. I agree that to some extent this society breeds criminality. but not cold blooded murder to get another meth hit. there are millions of people from all races who grew up in similar or even far worse circumstances who never turned to violent crime. so in summary...I'm against the DP, but I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep tonight if I found out beforehand that this worthless, violent dirt bag got removed from the gene pool.

[Gnostic]

[jimmyz]

Im against the death penalty if Im guilty and convicted of a death penalty offense. Im for the death penalty if my daughter is raped and murdered. Simplistic I know. Hey Dylan lend me some of your nuance. Im fresh out.