No Death Penalty. What Is Your Position?

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Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

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Stripe said:
It is more important to execute the guilty than it is to worry about executing an innocent man.

Some good might arise from a wrongful execution, but nothing good can ever come from letting a murderer live.
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Okay, what "good" comes about through the wrongful execution of an innocent person? The only "good" that I can think of is to ensure that there's a process whereby that same travesty/tragedy isn't repeated. AKA 100% proof of guilt established before any execution takes place.

That isn't to say that there aren't problems with loopholes in the system where convicted offenders are allowed out to commit further crimes et al but you don't solve that with some system where an inevitable percentage of innocent people are sent to the gallows.
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Arthur Brain said:
Okay, what "good" comes about through the wrongful execution of an innocent person? The only "good" that I can think of is to ensure that there's a process whereby that same travesty/tragedy isn't repeated. AKA 100% proof of guilt established before any execution takes place.

That isn't to say that there aren't problems with loopholes in the system where convicted offenders are allowed out to commit further crimes et al but you don't solve that with some system where an inevitable percentage of innocent people are sent to the gallows.
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but you're ok with a wrongfully convicted innocent person spending the rest of their life in prison?
 
Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

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ok doser said:
but you're ok with a wrongfully convicted innocent person spending the rest of their life in prison?
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Of course not, why would you even think that? There's plenty of cases where the wrongfully convicted have had their convictions overturned and recompensed when evidence has proven their innocence. I wouldn't want an innocent person to spend a minute in jail but as with any system there's going to be mistakes where this happens. At least a living person can be compensated along with their family. How are you going to do that with a corpse?
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Arthur Brain said:
Of course not, why would you even think that? There's plenty of cases where the wrongfully convicted have had their convictions overturned and recompensed when evidence has proven their innocence. I wouldn't want an innocent person to spend a minute in jail but as with any system there's going to be mistakes where this happens. At least a living person can be compensated along with their family. How are you going to do that with a corpse?
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let's assume I'm falsely convicted of murder and incarcerated for 35 years - my marriage fails, my relationships with my children, my friends, my family - all of those disintegrate as well, I miss all of my children's birthdays, weddings, the birth of my grandchildren, all while living in the hell of a penal system somehow magically transformed to prevent me from murdering anybody while I'm incarcerated - so basically 35 years of solitary confinement

and you're going to pretend that there's any amount of compensation that will repay me for that?
 
ok doser

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
glassjester said:
How many wrongfully-convicted, later-exonerated lifers come out saying, "Gee, I sure wish they'd executed me." ?
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you (and artie) are pretending there's a difference between a flawed judicial system that commits murder and a flawed judicial system that commits kidnapping

there isn't


the innocent person who is incarcerated unjustly and freed 35 years later is just as dead as if they'd been murdered - they've had their life stolen, just the same as the one who was murdered and there's no use pretending it can be given back
 
Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

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ok doser said:
let's assume I'm falsely convicted of murder and incarcerated for 35 years - my marriage fails, my relationships with my children, my friends, my family - all of those disintegrate as well, I miss all of my children's birthdays, weddings, the birth of my grandchildren, all while living in the hell of a penal system somehow magically transformed to prevent me from murdering anybody while I'm incarcerated - so basically 35 years of solitary confinement

and you're going to pretend that there's any amount of compensation that will repay me for that?
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No, no amount of financial compensation could come close although you're providing a worst case scenario whereby every wrongfully convicted person is abandoned by all who are close and that wrongful convictions take that long to overturn. In that scenario it's tragic and as above, no compensation could cover such loss but with the process that you would seem to support there'd be no chance for any innocent person to have their convictions overturned even within a matter of weeks. There's many cases where the innocent have been exonerated, compensated and been able to return to their families and loved ones.

Again, how are you going to compensate a corpse or their family?
 
Arthur Brain

Arthur Brain

Well-known member
glassjester said:
Um... no. No they aren't.
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I think he means "dead inside" after all that person has lost, been deprived of and been through although it's an extreme example as it is and hardly justifiable support for a system that would have killed innocent people who'd been exonerated a lot earlier if in practice.
 
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