Court ruling of the Death Penalty

[Setareh]

Yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that child rapists cannot be executed for their crime. The ruling goes on to pretty much limit capital punishment to crimes where people are murdered.

Do you think someone has to die in order for the death penalty to be justified?

 

[liveyourlife`]

Capital punishment should never be used and you certainly shouldn't be adding to the crimes that can merit it. Thats a slippery slope that starts with child rapists and ends who knows where.

 

[gym]

I agree. Killing someone in any way other than combat or self defense serves no purpose. If anything it keeps the criminal from having to feel any remorse for their actions.

I understand some people may never feel bad for what they do, but it's something you can't change. Killing a criminal won't change what has happened.

However things like saying "This person is mentally ill and didn't know any better." is just as bad in my opinion. If your dog pees on the rug he knows he did wrong even before you get home, so a human no matter how messed up knows deep inside raping a child is sick and baseless.

I don't like it when court psychologists try to say some one who does this is crazy. It's a calculated crime even if you just grab little johnny off his bike you still have to think about what you are doing.

 

[AngryBitterWoman]

It gets them off the planet and in the vein of global warming craze, he will no longer be breathing out co2

 

[PuppyMummy]

LOL. I can see the headline now from the AP

Death Penalty Lowers Carbon Footprint

Hmmm kinda sounds good when you put it that way.

 

[NickGe]

I concur. I have yet to see an argument for capital punishment that even vaguely approaches logic.




I think you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The concepts of mental health are extremely difficult, as are theories of psychopathy and sociopathy. To say that "oh yeh, everyone knows it's wrong" is simplisitc at best. Tell that to all the cultures that pratice FGM on under-age girls for example.

 

[imrdy111]

That's a matter of religion and I can find nothing sadder or more misguided on this planet than religious leaders.

 

[vilcho]

Wow, to amazingly controversial topics in one morning. I am still not sure how the death penalty is legal in any country. The UN released the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948, with Article 3 stating "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." (And that security isn't the right to bear arms). It mentioned in there that all these rights are afforded to every person, no matter what (Article 2).

It still baffles me how the US gets around it.

 

[DeeA]

Who cares what the Un says with out us the UN has no teeth.
The right to bear arms GUARANTEES all the other rights in our bill of rights.

 

[JasG]

Very easy. The elected a tree and lost their rights to Freedom of Speech just like the UK.



Same way it states no country can not persecute anyone about their beliefs. And yet in another thread you have called people hippes for affirming their belief.

As for the subject: It does not bother me one bit. If they die so be it. It will not bother me in any way.

 

[Candycane]

I mean that the US should not listen to ANY foreign power (nation or organization) for how to rule its citizens. Especially as we are currently (for a little while longer) the only Super Power.

 

[mle]

Threads like this inevitably turn out to serve as arena's for people who've no idea what they're talking about starting to posture about what exactly they would do to child molestors if they got the chance.

The fact is it's more complicated than people realise, me personally, I couldn't care less if the person lives or dies from one point of view, but I think the three things thaat convince me the death penalty is a bad idea are:

1) Nothing to loose for the abuser, might as well kill the kid as it reduces the chance of them being ID's (Clashes slightly with the second point)

2) It usually isn't a stranger in a trench coat that does these things, it's Uncle Joe or Step Dad Bob, if you put them to death, then the kid has that on their conscience. It's a particularly poignant thought when you consider the number of victims of abuse that can't come to terms with the fact that there actions led to their abuse being in jail and blame themselves for their whole thing happening in the first place.

3) I don't trust juries, plain and simple, particularly in more emotional cases, I've seen reports of studies that have proven that the more emotional a case is the more likely a jury is to get it wrong. I've also recently seen a study show that the attractiveness of a plaintiff can affect the jury so much that you see up to a 50% reduction in the convictions. I just don't trust a mans life to a process which is so fickle.

Until someone can convincingly answer all three of the above points, I don't see how you can have a case for killing rapists or pedophiles.

Although I'm not sure that any of these where concerns in the U.S. Syupremem Courts Ruling, anyone got a link to somewhere I can read mroe about it?

 

[ElizabethK]

The opinion in question:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-343.pdf (Kennedy v Louisiana, the topic up for discussion, holding that where death of the child victim is not the intent of the sexual abuse, imposition of the death penalty is prohibited under the 8th Amendment).




Your opinion is sadly uninformed. For the last 20 years or so, diminished capacity and mental illness has been hotly debated by the courts of this land by the most respected jurists out there. The following cases are relevant to this discussion, and explain much better than I can, why it is inappropriate to put a defendant with a diminished capacity to death.

http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/03-633.pdf (Roper v Simmons, holding that the execution of juvenile offenders violates the 8th and 14th Amendments due to the inherent diminished capacity of juveniles)

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-8452.ZO.html (Atkins v Virginia, holding that mentally retarded persons who meet the law’s requirements for criminal responsibility should be tried and punished when they commit crimes. Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct. Moreover, their impairments can jeopardize the reliability and fairness of capital proceedings against mentally retarded defendants. The application of the death penalty in such cases violates the 8th Amendment.).

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but I'm going to go by what the experts in my field have to say on the matter. And having dealt with children and retarded defendants who have committed the most heinous of crimes, I can tell you that these opinions are most welcome.

 

[maryjane_bby]

personally, i'm of the opinion that there are a great many criminals in need of a good killing, and that perpetual incarceration is more cruel than capital punishment.

 

[TheTennessean]

I mean that the US should not listen to ANY foreign power (nation or organization) for how to rule its citizens. Especially as we are currently (for a little while longer) the only Super Power.

Pull your head out.
You're sounding like such a Numpty.
Then again, ignorance must be bliss, eh shinbushi?

 

[Lyanthya]

The USA, so far as I know, did not sign up to the Human Rights Act.
Article 2 of the Human Rights Act reads as follows:

“Everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law. No-one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.”
“Deprivation of life shall not be regarded as inflicted in contravention of the Article when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary:
a.    In defence of any person from unlawful violence;
b.    In order to effect a lawful arrest or to prevent the escape of a person unlawfully detained;
c.    In action lawfully taken for the purpose of quelling a riot or insurrection.

The second sentence of the article allows those countries that have a death penalty to use it.

 

[December]

"Adding" things you can be executed for wasn't the issue; raping children has always been punishable by death in certain circumstances at least until two days ago. This decision serves to limit and undue laws already in existence.

 

[Valhalla]

Why do people say stuff like this as if the United Nations is some sort of governing body? The UN is nothing more than a discussion forum. The only form of soverignty above the nation-state is Almighty God.

 

[Nickkay]

I was not aware of this, have you got an example of a case where a child rapist was sentenced to death?

 

[mutantalbino]

Sure, Kennedy vs. Louisianna which was the case the Court ruled on
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/washington/26scotuscnd.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

This particular law goes back to 1995 and until yesterday had been in effect for 13 years. The NYT article provides some nice background info.