Illinois drops death penalty
 

I am strongly ambivalent.

I agree half-heartedly

I will be watching closely.
Let's see those crimes escalate WAY out of control.
Because the Death Penalty is all about reducing crime.

My Dad will be horrified that one of the only Western Civilisations to still kill its criminals is turning its back on capital punishment state by state. I'll tell him tomorrow, put him off his Branflakes.
Maybe it's time he converted to Islam. Because everyone knows about the zero crime rate in Muslim countries... Although they see it as divinely accorded punishment, rather than justice. Sheesh - it seems you can't win either way.

The death penalty is about revenge and the big payback. The idea that it is a deterrent was promulgated by folks who didn't want to seem barbaric and engaging in the same behavior as those whom they were killing. It's the old "This is hurting me more than it's hurting you" rationale.

it may be about reducing crime, but, and i speak from experience, being locked up for life is way worse than the death penalty. when someone commits a heinous crime worthy of the death penalty then make sure they get life. am i for the death penalty? in a way yes and no. sitting in solitary waiting for your day on the bed is one thing...but being locked up until the day you naturally die is another. it is a seemly endless wait. now i had a friend that only had a 4 year sentence but he died after i left south texas. his sentence turned into a life sentence. he had 6 months left to go to freedom. but thanks to tdcj and their exquisite medical staff he had a ruptured appendix and died from it. they sent him back to his dorm knowing something was wrong. i'm getting off key here but yeah, do away with the death penalty. it;s cheaper for the state and longer for the inmate. being locked up sucks balls.

Despite having never been in prison (except visiting) I agree with you. I'd rather have the chair than spend life behind bars.

If they're guilty, I don't really care which they'd prefer.

If they're innocent, then any day they're not killed is a day they may be able to prove it.

and that is another reason to abolish the death penalty. the DA's do get it wrong sometimes. but yet they produce a conviction when it wasn;t warranted because they acted out and convinced a jury that they were right and the defense was wrong. fucking lawyers. there is no justice for the innocent when the prosecution is dead fast on convicting someone. they only care about their freakin resumes. not whether the defense is innocent or not. political gain. they don;t give a rats ass. i;m getting very pissed. i digress. and am stepping away from this thread. there is not one thing that any of you could say to change my mind on this one.

oh what i meant was this....if someone has a life sentence and then gets exonerated then at least they are alive to gain freedom. kinda sucks if you get exonerated after you have been slaughtered. which happens.

What he just said.

I've heard that it is more expensive to the taxpayers to execute a prisoner, than to incarcerate one for life.

Well duh!

Spexx, Shawnee: that is because of the care we take over it. It is not inherently expensive to kill somebody.

How much does a single Kalashnikov round cost the Red Chinese? That's their standard execution method.

Having a death penalty, however carefully implemented, is a sign that you are prepared to resist evil to the ultimate degree. Is this somehow not how evil should be resisted? Illinois dropped the ball.

Despite that care, Illinois was found to have wrongfully convicted 15 people.

That wrong can be corrected if those convicted were given life in prison. Not so easy to correct after being put to death.

Agreed. It is not. And is that sufficient reason to limit the vigor with which the good shall resist the evil? I don't see it that way -- I don't much care for decadence, and I see no reason to place arbitrary limits on damage control. There are some lives over which death adds up to improvement. We should not fail to understand this. I certainly don't, but I don't know what kind of thinking motivates the opposition. Moral cowardice, maybe. Makes you duck my central question with every fiber of your being. I'd be ashamed to do that.