Is the death penalty still appropriate?

Your base implication that the government was ceded the power to judge a man's life given some abstracted interpretation of the social contract may be untenable in a debate regarding the ability of government to execute law and order--or it may be extremely defendable. It's a nice little thought exercise and you can add your opinion to those of Locke, Hobbes, etc, but it unfortunately has little to do with the question at hand.

The fact that we enter into a social contract with the government is not at question, nor is the ability of the government to set degrees of crime and the resulting punishments to maintain a stable society. Is the death penalty a punishment which the People ought to set for a crime? Maybe. Certainly some acts are beyond reprehensible for moral or contextual reasons, and death may be agreed upon as a response--or as a precaution to hinder the actions of would-be criminals.

Unfortunately, the People of certain states and commonwealths within the United States grant their governments this power. In others, however, the People have rescinded this power, and these various states and commonwealths may not punish using the death penalty. Ultimately, the death penalty is just one more element of the powers the People grant to their various state or federal governments and, just as we subject ourselves to the laws and mandates of government as our part of the social contract, we may conversely grant and rescind the powers of justice--including the death penalty--to our governments.

I asserted that the government should not execute the death penalty for ideological reasons, that an enlightened government should recognize that control over whether a person lives or dies in terms of justice transcends the scripted powers of government. Let me emphasise, the government should not execute the death penalty, not that the government currently cannot execute the death penalty or that the People cannot grant this power to the government or that the death penalty is somehow morally wrong. This has nothing to do with the social contract, besides the fact that the social contract acts as a vehicle for the People and the State to come to concordance on justice. It has to do with the concept of just government and with the limits of executable power.

Whether the government executes its right over human life discriminately or indiscriminately, the government will still maintain power over life. I, personally, do not agree with the possible extremes of such power, and therefore stand against any possible abuse.

TL;DR: "Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson

You swear you're swole, but you ain't.

 

You took the words straight out of my mouth.

An eye for an eye, murderers should be put to death, that is the price they shall pay when they took a person's life. Thieves should be forced to pay that which they stole. Rapists ... disgusting creatures, shall also be put to death. We need just/righteous court systems.

 

How is it just to kill people who may have a chance at rehabilitation? How is the death penalty just when we have plenty of examples of wrongful executions?

 

Justice needs to be served. Rehabilitation is, excuse my language, bullshit for people who have killed other human beings for no reason. That's just sick ...

 

No, the death penalty more than often ends up just consuming capital and almost never take place. I do believe in a punishment for people that commit violent actions above moral standards. Punishing the criminal long term should be a more appropriate reward instead of a swift/painless execution. Bring back Guantanamo Bay and treat the people who find killing other people the way they should be treated, a much better investment and example of what ''punishment'' looks like for the criminals out there contemplating murder.

 

Death penalty, case by case. Not too keen on prisons as they cost too much.

 

So what would happen if someone is wrongfully killed? You think a government has the right to take the lives of its citizens?

Case in point: Cameron Todd Willingham

 

I agree with the death penalty but only for certain crimes...

You carried out a shooting at a primary school for little kids? Why on EARTH should someone like this be kept alive and allowed to breathe still? That person took away the lives of so many younger innocent lives who had their whole life ahead of them. No one will gain anything from them sitting in a prison somewhere, it won't have any impact or difference on the fact that lives have been lost. Yes people can say that they will feel the punishment and have to stay in prison for the rest of their lives, but is that actually going to change anything for the lives that were lost?

 

...Killing them won't change anything for the lives that were lost, either.

 

Completely against it.

Theres multiple reasons for my strong opinion on this too. For starters, do you know how many people have been exonerated from death row? In the U.S, I believe the number of people executed was around 1,500 and over 200 people exonerated. That's 1 in 7 people found innocent after being sentenced to death. Now, imagine all the people that have been executed and were never given the chance to prove their innocence. Theres people that have been executed in as little as 7 years and others that were exonerated 39 years after conviction. Pretty scary numbers if you ask me. On top of that, it's also more expensive and wastes more of tax payers money to sentence someone to death than just to simply sentence them to life in prison.

 

Im with C I R O C on this. Although some people do deserve the death penalty for heinous crimes the U.S Criminal Justice system has so many flaws and puts alot of innocent people on death row and prison in general.

 

I believe in the death penalty, but only for certain situations.

I believe there should be ABSOLUTE proof of the crime and the crime should be deserving of death...

It's true that too many people are killed by us here in the US who either didn't even do the crime in question or the crime was not worthy of their life. But hey, the justice system is broken... I'm currently on probation because I was jobless for awhile and couldn't pay child support... They tried to put me in prison for 5 years. FIVE YEARS... when I finally got out of jail, awaiting my trial, ya know what my mom said? She said "next time, you might as well rape somebody." I was a little dumbfounded, said wtf and she explained... The average imprisonment of a man found guilty of rape is ONLY FIVE YEARS! So she was correct... In the USA (or missouri at least) not having a job while also being a father is equal to rape.

Back to the point... If the justice system could be fixed, the death penalty would be perfect. Rapist, Child molesters, murderers... I believe they deserve to die, hell I'd gladly give em the "lethal injection" myself. But the fact remains, many people are convicted without REAL proof... Not to long ago, I can't remember exactly... 2 or 3 years maybe, there was a man killed for supposedly burning down his house and thus, killing his kids... It was not until after his death it was found that he was innocent; I can't remember if the fire was electrical or if someone else DID start it, but if he would not have been put to death UNTIL there was ABSOLUTE proof of the crime, he would still be alive today.

True, a good part of the time its impossible to know for a fact if someone is guilty, but those rare times where there is absolute proof, they should be killed.... And also, different crimes should be punished differently... If you ask me, we should take child molesters back to the old times and put them to death by letting rats eat off their genitals and burrow into their bodies... But that's just my personal opinion...

 

Like previously stated, giving somebody who has raped/murdered numerous people the death penalty is an easy way out and they don't deserve that.
On the other hand keeping them in prison costs a lot of money and they don't deserve that either.
I think of it as if I had a child and somebody committed a crime against them would I want to go to bed knowing they're still alive. Therefore I agree with it.

 

As others have said above, I would only suggest putting this penalty in place if it's deserved.

If there are other alternative ways people have died, accidents or suicides then why would people be punished?

 

When is it deserved in your opinion?

 

I guess so, if they want to go on a killing spree I don't think the death penalty is unjust, but only for high end mass murder in my opinion.

 

No, I don't think so. I would support capital punishment if it served as a working deterrent against violent crime, but the evidence doesn't seem to suggest as such (in fact, the evidence seems to suggest the opposite). If you look at the United States, states without the death penalty have consistently had lower violent crime rates than those that do. Taking that into consideration, then what's the point of having it in the first place? I feel that this kind of retributive justice, especially when dealing with human lives, is a little primitive anyways and doesn't have a place in modern society..

 

Death penalty is very appropriate, if you intentionally kill someone you should be killed too. You don't comeback from a murder no matter who you are.
The only reason the death penalty is appropriate might I say.

 

I completely disagree. You're saying that no person .. no matter what the circumstances or time spent for rehabilitation can ever rejoin society again?

 

So why does he get a second chance when his victim cannot? It's like he basically got a free 1 up lol. Plus american rehabilitation in jails are jokes lmao