Quote:
Originally posted by Happy Monkey
How about the innocent peoplel who are executed? Feel sorry for them? A necessary evil to save us money, I suppose.
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The odds of an innocent person actually being executed are low. Why? Because they're more likely to spend the rest of their lives in prison, due to endless appeals. Besides, the odds of the death penalty being sought nowadays is getting lower and lower. You practically have to rape and kill a busload of teenage nuns in front of a cop and ten other witnesses, then say "I DID IT!" before they'll call for the death penalty. And all this comes from the social work crowd who blame everyone and everything for the criminal's behavior EXCEPT the criminal himself.
"Lock the fuckers up and make them break rocks for the next 20 years, they don't have the opportunity to reoffends and if they are innocent, they can still get out. Make prisons factories, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, it seems to me that prisons need to be both more human and less generous."
We can't do that. Breaking rocks is cruel and unusual punishment, and the second one is exploitation.
"Those in favor of the death penalty here seem to be conveniently ignoring the fact that innocent people get executed when you have a death penalty. If new evidence comes to light that would exonerate the innocent, there is no appeal from the death penalty once it has been implemented. If they are in prison for life, you can always release them."
See my answer to #1
"Life in prison means just that. Life. Gone are the days of getting out in 7 years."
Wrong. A "life" sentence is seven years, give or take, before the individual comes up for parole. What you're thinking of is "life without possibility of parole," which is rarely handed down.
For all of you who think the death penalty is cruel, or abhorrent, or just wrong, imagine an experiment: we'll build a little community and give you a house there. Then we'll release all the poor little death row inmates and give THEM houses there, and YOU can watch over them for us and make sure that they not only remain only in that community, but that they don't commit further crimes. It'd be your job, and you'd get paid for it. The catch is, you have to bring your kids and partner along, too. Of course, if someone gets killed, you can't complain....
And another question: if there were no doubt that the offender was guilty, and that he wasn't a bit sorry--if you heard it from his own mouth, how many of you who oppose the death penalty would then say, "ok, fry him."?
Sidhe