The Death Penalty

[ST88]

On the TV show, "Homicide", one of the characters describes the Death Penalty this way: "It's wrong... and necessary." On TV, it's often used as leverage to get suspects to confess -- I don't know if it works this way in real life. But the idea is that the threat of death as a punishment for violent crime is part of its effectiveness.

We often hear the religious among us talk about the sanctity of life when it comes to topics like abortion and assisted suicide, and though many religions have come out against the Death Penalty, only one actually puts a fair amount of resources towards opposing it (Quakers, I believe).

Most of the world's nations have banned the death penalty, and yet the U.S. is made up of people who arrived from most of the world's nations. We have a culture of death in this country -- idealizing death as the ultimate punishment, in some ways the ultimate exile from society. In this way, the U.S. is less pragmatic than other nations, and more reliant on an image of the ideal society. The ideal society myth is part of the reason why people emigrate here.

The Death Penalty strikes me as pie-in-the-sky reasoning about what death should mean to people and how the threat of it affects their behavior. In pop-sociology, what it is intended to do is deter people from committing violent crimes for fear of having the government put them to death. This is ludicrous, of course, but the ideal is still around.

What is the purpose of Capital Punishment, and is it a fair way to deal with the worst violent criminals in society? What does religion have to say about the death penalty, and how has it informed U.S. opinion?

[perfessor]

Hard to answer this poll - there were several options that I could agree with, but ended up voting "other".

True, it keeps violent criminals from repeating their actions.

True, it wastes taxpayer money on endless appeals etc. I don't have numbers in front of me, but I have heard from a number of sources that it costs many times more to execute someone, than to incarcerate them, even for a lifetime.

Here in Illinois, we had over the last several years, some 13 death row occupants were released, after DNA evidence proved them innocent. One in particualr was less than 24 hrs. from his scheduled execution. To me, this is about as barbaric as it gets. This led to our governor, a Republican BTW, to empty death row with a blanket commutation.

As a citizen, I want deterrence, and I want justice, but I honestly don't see that the Death Penalty helps in either case.

Incidentally, when I was 12, our youth minister suggested to our class that the U.S. criminal justice system treated minorities unfairly. He was fired!

[micatala]

I also thought there were a number of responses I agreed with, but overall, 'the barbaric relic from the past' option seemed most appropriate.

To me, the fact that we do execute people speaks badly of our society. I don't equate the death penalty with abortion, but feel the same way about that issue to some extent. The fact that so many abortions occur in our country does mean to me that we have less respect for life than we should, that we are a more violent society than we should be. It is also speaks to an overall lack of responsibility for sexual behavior.

I think we should outlaw the death penalty. I am not sure about abortion, because I do think there are circumstances where it may be necessary, but I have a hard time looking at it as some kind of 'fundamental right,' that should have no restrictions on it.

[youngborean]

I believe that the death Penalty is just as long as the victims of the Crime approve of it as the appropiate penalty. I believe that the option should be there for fairness sake to not over-victmize a victim of murder, rape, molestation or repeated violent offences. I believe this was the Biblical principle put in place, that the punishment of death would be incurred only if the family of the deceased pursued it. I like this model, the victims chooses the punishment. If they want to be gracious then then the criminal can go to prison.

[perfessor]

I believe that the death Penalty is just as long as the victims of the Crime approve of it as the appropiate penalty.

This begs the question: How certain are we, that the defendant is the perpetrator? See my post above; I believe that the problems Illinois has uncovered are not limited to Illinois.

I like this model, the victims chooses the punishment. If they want to be gracious then then the criminal can go to prison.

And if they want to be ungracious? I believe it is entirely appropriate for the State to take control of the proceedings - otherwise, we run the risk of "vigilante justice", which is usually too laden with emotion to be accurate.

[MagusYanam]

The problem of the death penalty, for me, has been a long and difficult one to get a good grip on. I myself am a little torn on the issue. I feel that people are in and of themselves moral ends, so I don't believe the death penalty to be moral on a personal level. On a systemic level, I see the death penalty as having some value - it removes dangerous and unstable elements efficiently from the system itself, but at great cost.

Looking just at the cold, hard facts: the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to violent crime in our society (since Oklahoma adopted it, murder rates have gone up, not down; murder rates tend to be higher overall in states enforcing the death penalty) and it costs exorbitant amounts on the taxpayers and is an enormous strain on the justice systems of those states who use it. These facts are what convinced me to go against the death penalty, so that's how I voted (even though there is also the morality issue to be considered).

Also, life in prison (high-security) is just as efficient a method of removing those dangerous elements from society, and is less costly and less morally repugnant at any rate.

Even in societies where the death penalty was present and even routine (Mediaeval China, for example), the death penalty itself was seen not as serving the greater good, but as a necessary societal repugnance. Confucius put it this way:

If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of shame, and moreover will become good.

[mrmufin]

What is the purpose of Capital Punishment, and is it a fair way to deal with the worst violent criminals in society?

Well, my vote was for It is a barbaric relic of a different time in human history. If I was going to whack somebody and knew that I would definitely be caught, life in prison without parole would be viewed as a much greater deterrent than the death penalty. But that might just be me; having never been to prison, the thought of spending any time there scares the crap outta me. For folks who might have been in and out of the big house a few times, the thought of spending the rest of life there may not be as intimidating.

I think that punishment for a crime should serve two fundamental purposes. First, it should deter someone from committing the criminal act, and second, it should protect the balance of society from being further victimized by the perpetrator. While the death penalty certainly achieves the second objective, its finality marginalizes the incidence of juror error and/or incompetence and reeks of vengeance, moreso than justice. There's just something about killing someone in order to demonstrate that killing is wrong which rings hypocritical on my ears...

Regards,
mrmufin

[fidelis]

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2266 The efforts of the state to curb the spread of behavior harmful to people's rights and to the basic rules of civil society correspond to the requirement of safeguarding the common good. Legitimate public authority has the right and duty to inflict punishment proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Punishment has the primary aim of redressing the disorder introduced by the offense. When it is willingly accepted by the guilty party, it assumes the value of expiation. Punishment then, in addition to defending public order and protecting people's safety, has a medicinal purpose: as far as possible, it must contribute to the correction of the guilty party.67

2267 Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.

[RevJP]

No answer truly reflected my thoughts, but prevention of future violent crimes is close enough.

Really though I question the logic in sentencing a person to life in prison without possibility of parole. If an individual is so heinous that society has determined that he or she should not be allowed to exist in that society then doesn't elimination make more sense than perpetual incarceration?

The cost of capitol punishment, if it is properly seperated from the appeal process, is much less than 50-80 years of incarceration.

I would ask though, is it more humane to cage a person for 80 years with no hope of seeing anything but the jail cell, or to put that individual to sleep never to wake again?

[youngborean]

I believe that the death Penalty is just as long as the victims of the Crime approve of it as the appropiate penalty.

This begs the question: How certain are we, that the defendant is the perpetrator? See my post above; I believe that the problems Illinois has uncovered are not limited to Illinois.

I like this model, the victims chooses the punishment. If they want to be gracious then then the criminal can go to prison.

And if they want to be ungracious? I believe it is entirely appropriate for the State to take control of the proceedings - otherwise, we run the risk of "vigilante justice", which is usually too laden with emotion to be accurate.

I wasn't suggesting removing the state. I was talking about punishment, this is completely seperate from the shortcomings of western Judicial methods of establishing guilt. My point is that capital punishment should acknowledge the desire of the victim. Now judicial reform is a seperate issue. I think most people want a system that only convicts people becuase they are guilty. But this can hardly show that the Death Penalty is an unjust punishment.