stella40
Posts: 417
Joined: 1/11/2006
From: London, UK
Status: offline
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Thank you for your comments, SeeksOnlyOne. I have no wish to trivialise your feelings, I too have been a victim of crime but not quite as serious as you, I understand your feelings, I feel pretty much the same about such crimes as you do and feel we do actually have some common ground.
But I don't see the death penalty as being the solution nor even an effective deterrent. Most of those who commit these more heinous crimes, and let's face it, they are heinous, never figure that they're going to get the death penalty. It's kind of like a mental block.
I admit that I once wavered on my position regarding the death penalty. I was in Poland. I was reading an article about a gangster serving a life sentence in a Warsaw prison who had been incarcerated for some 8 years. Now the Polish prison system - and please don't ask me why because I cannot explain the logic behind this - allows prisoners out of prison every so often for 1-2 days to be with their families. And you had this gangster via a newspaper vowing to 'settle scores' and kill other people when he was released. I did spend some time thinking that maybe if prison isn't enough to prevent him killing, then he should be executed. But then again, why let someone out of prison for any reason during their sentence?
I think there is a Commandment which states Thou Shall Not Kill. I am a Buddhist, the first of five Precepts states 'Do not destroy life'. I take this quite literally.
The death penalty in the United States is a product of British colonial rule up until the time when it was declared unconstitutional and then again declared constitutional post-Furman in 1976 with the implementation of the two stage death penalty trial by jury - the guilt innocence stage and the penalty phase.
This new two stage trial has not prevented miscarriages of justice, and over a thousand executions later, with roughly a third of them occurring in Texas alone, it is not any sort of deterrent. Those unfit to comprehend any sort of justice, the criminally insane and mentally impaired - people like Ricky Ray Rector, Dalton Prejean and Jerome Bowden - were still executed. A few who had committed crimes as juveniles were also executed.
You can go to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website at any time and look up the cases under Scheduled Executions and see how cheap life has become. Every month at least two prisoners are taken to Huntsville and are executed and it appears that there are many more prepared to replace them on Death Row.
I don't make any exceptions. There are no exceptions. How many times do you hear when someone has received the death penalty or is about to be executed that they had a difficult childhood? Is this really a defense argument? I had a difficult childhood, but it in no way justifies me if I choose to kill someone.
I also don't make any distinction between Ted Bundy, Timothy MacVeigh and President Bush. You can take any of the statutes from California to Georgia, convict Bush of first degree murder (or genocide) and find enough aggravating circumstances to sentence him to death. The charge could be for the murder of Saddam Hussein - fully premeditated, calculated, and for financial gain. And as for mitigating factors? The immediate threat of Saddam and the weapons of mass destruction? Where is the evidence? The fact that Bush is a head of state? No. If so, would that mean he could go and murder any American citizen?
This may seem ridiculous, but law is all about principles and how those principles are applied. To have justice all principles have to be applied to all people fairly. The principle of the death penalty in the United States is not applied fairly. In fact it is very arbitrary. It is therefore not justice.
I feel maybe a better solution would be the implementation of gun control and another look at the American constitutional right to bear arms.
The United States isn't any different to any other country on this planet, it has a significant proportion of idiots. My reasoning is very simple:
gun + idiot + error of judgement = unlawful killing
It won't solve the problem of criminals in society - nothing will - and no matter how good your justice system is, you will always have those who break the law, you will always have murderers, rapists, thugs, robbers and such.
Therefore a good justice system in my opinion makes it difficult to commit a crime, it has laws which make it clear what is a crime, and appropriate penalties to deal with those who commit crimes.
The taking of a life for me is the ultimate crime and should face the ultimate penalty - removal from society permanently, no ifs, no buts. End of. The same should happen to anyone who puts someone in a life-threatening situation, or who commits a crime which has a major effect on someone's life.
I also feel that impact should play a greater role in sentencing, and that a murderer should not only have to answer for the death of their victim, but also for the bereavement and impact it has to other family members. So too the rapist should have to answer not only for the non-consensual sexual act but also the difficulties caused to the victim and others as a result of the rape.
And to me, sentencing someone to death and later strapping them to a trolley and injecting them with Pavulon is the easy way out.
_____________________________
I try to take one day at a time, but several days come and attack me at once. (Jennifer Unlimited)
If you can't be a good example then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
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RE: Majority of Americans favor the death penalty - 
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