I am waiting for the “Pro-Life” crowd occasionally seen here to speak out against the death penalty.
For the record, the Catholic Church is at least consistent in this: they are against abortion, euthanasia, AND the death penalty. And this pope has questioned our endless wars, too.
First of all, it is cheaper to keep someone in prison for life than it is to execute them.
Second of all, we KNOW that many innocent people are executed falsely; the Innocence Project has exonerated 349 people SO FAR and identified 149 alternative perpetrators. How much more terrible is it for the State to execute someone falsely?
As Ben Franklin noted “it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” And as John Adams noted, this is a very practical view: “It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished…. when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, ‘it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.’ And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever.”
The bottle on the right has little or nothing to do with the death penalty per se. It’s corruption in our “justice” system… prosecutors, cops, and even judges who are more interested in bragging about their “convictions” than in actual justice, and technicians analyzing evidence who similarly want praise or advancement without actually doing the work which would support it.
In other words, if innocent people are being convicted, we need to rebuild our justice system so that such “mistakes” are reduced to zero, or darn near, not just eliminate one particular penalty because it’s sometimes applied inappropriately. After all, not all such “mistakes” are on death row. In fact, many of them are in the opposite direction, e.g., someone set free by a too-lenient judge. (E.g., how many individuals have been murdered by someone against whom an “order of protection” has been issued, after they have already threatened to kill the eventual victim?)
Motivemagus almost 7 years ago
I am waiting for the “Pro-Life” crowd occasionally seen here to speak out against the death penalty.
For the record, the Catholic Church is at least consistent in this: they are against abortion, euthanasia, AND the death penalty. And this pope has questioned our endless wars, too.
Hippogriff almost 7 years ago
Sub-human red in fang and claw.
Motivemagus almost 7 years ago
First of all, it is cheaper to keep someone in prison for life than it is to execute them.
Second of all, we KNOW that many innocent people are executed falsely; the Innocence Project has exonerated 349 people SO FAR and identified 149 alternative perpetrators. How much more terrible is it for the State to execute someone falsely?
As Ben Franklin noted “it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” And as John Adams noted, this is a very practical view: “It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished…. when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, ‘it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.’ And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever.”
https://www.innocenceproject.org
gammaguy almost 7 years ago
The bottle on the right has little or nothing to do with the death penalty per se. It’s corruption in our “justice” system… prosecutors, cops, and even judges who are more interested in bragging about their “convictions” than in actual justice, and technicians analyzing evidence who similarly want praise or advancement without actually doing the work which would support it.
In other words, if innocent people are being convicted, we need to rebuild our justice system so that such “mistakes” are reduced to zero, or darn near, not just eliminate one particular penalty because it’s sometimes applied inappropriately. After all, not all such “mistakes” are on death row. In fact, many of them are in the opposite direction, e.g., someone set free by a too-lenient judge. (E.g., how many individuals have been murdered by someone against whom an “order of protection” has been issued, after they have already threatened to kill the eventual victim?)