The death penalty is a barbaric institution. It always has been, and it always will be. The government says it’s okay to murder this person, so let’s murder him.
I don’t get why that doesn’t shock people’s consciences and sense of basic decency.
I think it’s that guys like this one aren’t a hill anyone is eager to die on. Like, it’s bad, but let’s not make this guy the poster boy for ending the practice. There are other cases I’m much happier to cite in arguments opposing the death penalty.
I am never worried about guilty people on death row. I am worried about those that kill them, those that help kill them, those that witness the killing, and those who believe falsely that this form of justice will heal anyone from harms or prevent future harms.
You forgot to worry about those who are raised in a society where it’s okay to kill people for any reason other than preventing another person from being harmed.
Even a single innocent person getting murdered by the state makes the practice barbaric. The state is imperfect. It should not have a license to murder.
Something tells me you wouldn’t be espousing this “it’s fine for the state to murder innocent people from time to time” if it were you, your partner, or your child on death row.
We're all in agreement, but as OP said, this
particular person isn't the time to make your stand on. We've all been vocally against the death penalty for a long time, but this specific person is not the one to make an especially strong "this is the line, no further" kind of stand for. I'm against him being killed like I'm against all cases of the government killing prisoners, but I'm also not doing any extra standing up for this particular person.
Every time the government falsely asserts a moral right to tie someone down and end their life is an appropriate time to speak out against that abhorrence as it is abhorant every time it happens.
People that understand strategy. Rosa Parks wasn’t the first person to be arrested for violating the seat law, but she was unimpeachable as a person and made an effective figurehead.
So you only stand by your views as long as it’s convenient and easy?
I guess the right of attorneys is important but if the state violates his rights to that in this trial then you are not gonna have an issue with that either?
He is standing by his views. Just not going out of his way to defend this person. Let’s see you go to the courtroom and protest this particular guy’s death penalty if you are so dedicated.
If I lived there, I would. Not protesting this shows that you’re actually okay with the death penalty, and your typical admonishment of it doesn’t reflect your true beliefs.
this particular person isn’t the time to make your stand on.
Those of us who are vehemently against the death penalty tend to be vocal about it every time it comes up, not just when it’s happening to awful people. It’s important to make it clear that even in cases like this, the death penalty should not be a thing, because otherwise we tacitly agree that sometimes, the death penalty is a good thing.
This particular person is absolutely the time to make our stand against the death penalty, because if we don’t, then we don’t stand against it at all.
I used to be against the death penalty. Read an article once about why it’s racist. Don’t remember them saying why it was racist but eventually they got to what the guy had done. He cut open a pregnant woman to steal her baby for his junkie girlfriend. I have been pro death penalty ever since.
I used to be pro death penalty. The thing that convinced me was that it was so much more expensive to kill someone then jail them for life. Can you tell I grew up a good little republican? Of course the usual right-wing response is just take them out back and shoot them and while I might’ve given that some lip service, I knew then justice was imperfect. Appeals and last minute clemency were getting people off of death row all the time (or at least it seemed so).
Eventually I came to learn of people who’d been executed (no clemency, no appeal, no last minute heroics) and there was no solid evidence a crime had even been committed much less that they were guilty. And the math doesn’t lie that it’s extremely racist, and if racial bias exists then clearly justice isn’t being served. I’m firmly against the death penalty for moral reasons now, but we all have our journey, right?
Sure, 1-5% of people executed by the state were either innocent or their guilt was under extreme doubt, but it’s worth it if it means killing violent people, right? I mean, I would gladly accept a wrongful death penalty if it means that someone who’s violent gets to be tortured to death with me
I remembet getting most of the way through and wondering if they were ever going to say why it’s racist but they really didn’t give any evidence for it. Then i wss horrified by the unthinkable crime.
I never understood why people believe we have some super special value when some of us are quite obviously a waste of space. Look up at the stars and how can you claim we have some special, meaningful place, above all the rest. We are nothing.
I’ll be glad when death penalty is abolished. But we’ve still got time till then, and this guy live streaming himself doing the murders doesn’t leave much in the way of wiggle room for innocence.
Gonna be tragic when we learn it was secretly racist nano robots controlling his whole body by time traveling confederates.
I have a friend who went to protest outside the federal prison when Timothy McVeigh was executed. He had no love for McVeigh. He thought McVeigh was a monster. That wasn’t the point. The point was that capital punishment is always wrong. The state should not have the power of life and death over its citizenry.
And I have great respect for him for doing so. Protesting capital punishment in cases like this are just as important as in lesser cases because the reason for the punishment isn’t at issue.
It’s extremely hard to get the drugs and to find a medical professional willing to administer them. Most drug companies specifically won’t sell to governments for this purpose. Most medical certification boards revoke licenses for engaging in this sort of thing.
If we can’t abolish the death penalty I’d prefer the prosecutors and judge be the firing squad. Make it real obvious that this is a violent destructive act they’re taking from start to finish.
It may be barbaric, and considering how many innocents have been railroaded into it via abuse or neglect of justice, ethically untenable on the face of it.
That said, I feel there are certain people who's actions are so horrific and ideologies so dangerous that should not be allowed to harm society again, and that includes having to pay for their upkeep.
There are many worthy of execution that have been released to kill again.
In our imperfect world it is not right to levy a judgment that cannot be reversed.
If we magically had perfect knowledge of guilt and innocence, I would have zero issue with the death penalty being applied.
Since that world does not, and cannot exist, I will accept life imprisonment, grudgingly. Some people simply cannot or will not be rehabilitated.
You’re implying that human beings have intrinsic worth. They don’t. Human life has no value, and humans are trash. They’re all garbage. Barbaric? You’re talking about slavers, murderers, rapists. Humans are inherently flawed and earth would be better off without them.
Good point- my thought was poorly worded. I meant that if people with lots of money are making more money by putting people in prison, then they will find ways to ensure people keep being put into prison.
Imprisoning people shouldn’t in and of itself be profitable since then imprisoning people is incentivized.
Your friend’s work goes towards making prisons more humane, I’m in favour of him and you can tell him so :)
And will that help reduce violent deaths at all in the future? A large number of shooters are just out to commit a mass murder-suicide. Who does this serve justice to? Or is this just to get people feeling like they’ve been “avenged”?
I know it’s a cliche, but it is a bit dumb to kill someone to show that killing is wrong.
Why waste resources on one who has proven themselves to be the worst kind of man? He won’t learn a lesson. He doesn’t deserve an opportunity to ever rejoin society. Your suggestion is to house, feed and provide medicine for this monster for the rest of his life. To give him what millions of Americans can not obtain. You want to reward his actions.
The death penalty is not revenge. It’s not a lesson.It should not be seen as some deterrent. It’s culling a sick animal so it can’t do any more harm to the rest of the population. It can be done quickly, humanely, and even cleanly though the cheapest method would make a small, containable mess.
There’s no good summary that I found in my five mins of research, and a lot of it came from https://deathpenaltyinfo.org, which appears to be a very biased nonprofit against the death penalty.
But the info seems consistent all around. It costs more because since it’s such a big deal for the state to kill somebody, the legal costs skyrocket dramatically. Hence, it’s more expense.
Again, 5 minutes of research. Somebody correct me. It still smells a bit funny if this cost is lifetime of the prisoner vs someone who has life in prison for multiple decades.
The costs come from years if not decades of appeals that are legally required after someone is sentenced to death, among other things like the cost of the chemicals used for lethal injection.
Factually, the anti death penalty advocates are correct about the expense argument, but it’s largely of their own doing because they’re the ones who imposed those expenses on the government by pushing for such laws. They literally largely made it a problem.
That is not and never has been the reason for capital punishment. The kind of people who should be executed are not doing the kind of crimes that are deterred. The point is to remove the individual who is not compatible with society.
I don’t necessarily disagree with the reasons behind your conclusion, but it costs more to execute a prisoner than to house them for life. The nature of the death penalty means that every appeal must be heard and fought through, which is one reason why it takes so long to kill them after conviction. All of those people involved in that process are thus being dragged away from other things they could be doing.
About the only time an execution occurs quickly is if the individual decides not to appeal. Rare, understandably. The other option would be to ignore the appeals process, and frankly we have already executed too many innocents for any person, even those who believe in the death penalty, to believe that would be justice.
Americans not being able to obtain housing and the rising homelessness does not mean we should employ capital punishment, which is an expensive and inhumane procedure where there is a chance to take away the life of those potentially innocent, not to mention that it doesn’t actually reduce or deter crime. In fact, it seems that places with more capital punishment have more violent crime.
Do you think it’s a waste of resources to even give him a trial? Death penalty trials are long and expensive and often cost more than lifelong incarceration. You might be okay with a low bar for having the government remove someone from society but I think the bar should be high, and the decision shouldn’t be done lightly. However, keeping that bar high also takes more resources so the issue isn’t as easy as you make it out to be.
Doesn’t it serve justice to the families and friends of the people who he has killed? I can’t imagine them feeling a sense of justice when their tax dollars are put to work to get this guy back into society.
Then allow executions within days with cheaper, more humane methods like bullets. The only reason it’s more expensive is because of you, and it should not be.
And you know you don’t have a rational leg to stand on, so when called out on your shit, you do what any self-righteous, self-involved dipshit does: fall back to tired old stereotypes and meaningless insults.
Why in the world would you think acting that way will convince anyone of anything? Convince me to change my mind?
Speeding up executions means more innocent people will be wrongfully executed. How many innocent people are you willing to kill to make sure this this asshole fries?
Oh the fuck well, that’s the price you pay for living in a society. All societies require their sacrificial lambs in order to prop themselves up because no legal system is perfect nor capable of being so, but we still have to put the well-being of our community above those who threaten or wrong it whether we make mistakes or not. And we give the state the benefit of the doubt in such circumstances because we accept that it’s the only way a community can be functional and work without even WORSE sacrifices.
You’re gonna tell me that we can’t give life back to those we take it from knowing that’s just as true with people wrongfully convicted and thrown in prison for life – the people who you sentence to be raped, tortured, enslaved, and STILL murdered anyway because your selfish, entitled ass thinks your opinions are better than others. And you absolve yourself of responsibility for the extreme cruelty and suffering you cause by telling yourself, “Well at least they’re alive,” which is a cop-out.
It’s far more humane to execute someone quickly after a trial because it minimizes the convicted’s suffering, it’s far better for the safety of the community because you are getting rid of a known offender even if the odds they’re actually guilty aren’t 100% perfect, it’s much more morally conscionable than expecting the community and victims to live in fear of offenders and ultimately is the better, more moral way.
But you don’t understand that because you’re not emphasizing with anyone else, you only care about how you feel about death personally and that is 100% a you problem.
How is executing someone keeping us safer from them than just throwing them in prison? Prison escapes, especially of dangerous, death row level offenders are exceedingly rare, at least in the US. People will point to deterrence, but no scientific studies have been able to demonstrate any significant deterrence effect of capital punishment. You’re just killing people out of anger.
I get it, many of these offenders are abhorrent. I won’t lose any sleep over the supermarket shooter getting his. But the death penalty should be abolished.
Because that person is dead which 100% guarantees they will never harm someone again. Whether it deters other people or not is irrelevant. We’re talking about him, this guy, and him alone.
Oh look at that, it’s the political ideologue retreating because he is being wrong and irrational about this and he knows it.
Your ideology is inhumane, unempathetic, destructive and UNSPEAKABLY cruel and you walk this earth with innocent blood on your hands. Blood you vehemently deny is there because morality for you isn’t about what’s best for other people, it’s about dominating other people. Fuck off.
nonono, you see, YOUR ideology is inhumane, unempathetic, destructive and UNSPEAKABLY cruel and you walk this earth with innocent blood on your hands. (I mean you’re literally ok with killing Innocents). Blood you vehemently deny is there because morality for you isn’t about what’s best for other people, it’s about dominating other people. Fuck off.
Lol the classic “no u” defense, championed by immature troglodytes the world over. Keep telling us you don’t know what you’re talking about. Keep telling us you refuse to emphasize with other people or to listen to the other side while you aggressively bully other people into thinking you’re more empathetic, loving and just simply because of your shitty opinions. Keep showing us why opposing the death penalty is morally reprehensible and why people like you are disgusting and abhorrent.
We are imperfect beings who live in an imperfect world and it is impossible to create a political system that will work perfectly 100% of the time. And that’s okay, because that’s just life. That also means ALL belief systems and ideologies are based on the premise of “a few of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make” because that’s a fundamental property of life you cannot escape.
Your ideology hinges on that belief, and yours is much MUCH more inhumane, vile, reprehensible and cruel because your sacrificial lambs are everyone else.
Like the rape victims who need their rapists to be executed to be able to be safe and live happy, meaningful lives. Who become addicted to drugs and kill themselves at exhorbitantly high rates specifically because you tell them that “society won’t kill your rapist to satisfy your bloodlust”, choosing their rapist over them and sending the message that in the name of your ideology, rapists’ interests are ultimately more important than that of their victims. Statistically, the hundreds of victims throughout the rapists’ lives.
Those rape victims kill themselves because of you and that’s one of the reasons why drug addiction and suicide rates are so high.
You killed those women, those innocent people just as assuredly as a state with the death penalty kills offenders, and you have those victims’ blood on your hands.
You are the psycho murderer here, not us. We are trying to run a community here. You are actively trying to destroy it.
But you don’t care about that because all you care about is yourself and your feelings.
Have you or do you honestly think everyone is stupid enough to think deontology is an acceptable worldview?
Have you considered other people have different points of view than you do, that those views are valid even though you don’t agree with them, and even worse, they might actually have good points?
Do you ever attempt to emphasize with anyone else or do you just fling around the word to accuse anyone you don’t agree with of doing something wrong? I can understand how you feel. The way you view killing and death as absolutely unacceptable regardless of circumstance is the way I feel about literally everything else, especially the rape, torture and enslavement that you flagrantly defend and even exploit to throw your opponents off-guard and manipulate them into surrendering to your woefully misguided and quite frankly, evil worldview. I can put myself in your shoes and feel the way you feel about it.
Why can’t you do that for anyone else? Why does everyone else have to capitulate to you but you don’t owe anyone even the slightest bit of understanding?
Yes, you literally are. You literally tell victims of serious crimes to get over it and accuse them of being bloodthirsty vengeful brutes when they tell you the reality of what you’re doing to them when you refuse to kill their perpetrators.
You literally don’t care about anyone other than yourself.
I already have to no matter what I do, so I would rather be humanely executed with a bullet a few days after being wrongfully convicted for something than to be locked in a cage. No matter how gilded that cage is, it would still be a cage, and still a lifetime of unnecessary suffering that is inherently inhumane and cruel as opposed to simple death for which afterwards there IS no suffering, because I’ll be fucking dead.
This is why you anti-death penalty ideologues are completely fucking unempathetic, irrational and completely lack self-awareness. You DON’T actually care about what’s moral, simply dominating the conversation and being the ones to dictate to everyone else so you can feel like you’re in control, and who cares about the deaths you personally cause or the millions of lives you ruin every day with your bullshit?
A large number of shooters are just out to commit a mass murder-suicide. Who does this serve justice to? Or is this just to get people feeling like they’ve been “avenged”?
My guy, your blatant hypocrisy speaks more volumes than I ever could.
You’re starting to fall back on the Hollywood revenge arguments. Give us some more of those. Entertain us.
When you grow up, you’ll see why your elders told you opposing the death penalty is wrong. I just hope it doesn’t come at the cost of your family the way it does so many others.
Me, to start. And I am telling you you are going down a dark, DARK path enabling genocide the way you are by defending the hopeless fascist retard who massacred 10 innocent people, while simultaneously accusing your opponents of violating human rights by supporting the death penalty.
You understand that the Nazis tried at Nuremburg were hanged specifically TO protect human rights, don’t you? That the whole-ass basis of human rights is the idea that individuals can jeopardize the future of the species and that killing them is a moral responsibility to prevent our extinction? Do you actually read any history at all? Do you know what you’re doing when you choose articles like this, the worst of the worst, specifically to proselytize and make yourselves look good in your eyes?
If you don’t, you’ll likely figure it out by the end of the year, when his ilk make you drown in the rivers of blood you spilled through them.
Fucking kids these days sleeping through history class, I swear 🤦
Only because the methods employed are stupidly wasteful and overcomplicated. The process needs to be overhauled in a logical and pragmatic way. The problem with current means of execution is that feelings were brought into the equation in the first place.
Good for you, there are 197 other countries in the world. You can keep pretending you’re better than everyone else while ignoring the governments of Nordic countries hide the truth behind the crimes their people suffer to keep up this image of perfection they project. The rest of the world knows the truth, though.
Either way, that’s pretty tangential to the death penalty unless your stance is “Well Sweden doesn’t have it so we’re better than you, nah nah nah nah nah” like that’s supposed to work on actual adults. 🤦
I don’t understand the connection between capital punishment and crime. could you please explain it to me? how does the death penalty deter crimes? are there some statistics that you could show me? thanks.
Yes, because he’s a fascist actively helping his cult to take over the country and can only be stopped with violence.
No one wants him dead to prove all killing is wrong, they want him dead because he is genocidal and a threat to the existence of everyone else. Don’t you bother trying to understand how other people think and feel, or do you think your arrogance and unwarranted sense of superiority over your opponents is what empathy is?
🤣 Oh, you’re so cute when you pretend your way of thinking is an axiom inherently better than others.
Communities DO have that right because they’re the community and they’re the ones who make the rules. There is no god or goddess dictating morality to us humans no matter how badly people want to pretend there is, there is only ourselves and nature, and we as the self-aware ones who invented morality have the right to make those choices because it’s OUR institution.
We will, because that is the way reality is whether you want to accept it or not. Your god is NOT coming to save you because he is not real. He is a fictional character in a book.
Communities have the right to make those decisions because the well being of their constituents is in the balance. Humans are diverse, self-aware, and have free will, and they can actively choose to do helpful or destructive things whenever they want. That also means they have diverse interests, and those interests directly conflict with one another. A or not A. B or not B. And we can’t have both. That means communities have to make hard choices about whose needs and interests it is going to place above others, because logically it is impossible to make both happy. And given the whole point of a fucking community is to protect the best interests of its members, it’s those interests it has to prioritize above everything else.
This is why communities not only have the right to kill humans that threaten it, but have a responsibility to. Because its members have to be placed higher in importance to those who threaten or harm it for the community to survive.
This is the world we live in based on the laws of physics and evolution. It is NOT going to change just because you don’t like it.
Do what you tell every rape victim to do when they call you out on your obvious immoral shit: get over it and move on, honey, or the world will move on without you.
Yes, that is what is moral. That’s why communities have the death penalty.
It also literally doesn’t matter if you want to accuse me of using a naturalistic fallacy or not, it’s reality whether you want to admit it or not.
All morality ultimately boils down to is our feelings, the community’s feelings, and what works in the real world and in the real world, you’re just wrong.
It’s up to you to put your ego and pride to the side and actually think about what I’m saying.
Now you think that your own moral outlook and beliefs are objective facts when they’re really not, and you think your axioms are shared by everyone when they are not. The world doesn’t revolve around you. You don’t dictate morality to us. We dictate it to you.
Literally everyone else except you and your creepy little cult.
Including the Black, Jewish, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ communities whose existence on this Earth you are threatening because you don’t see or care that your absurd anti-death-penalty stance is enabling literal genocide, because you are now defending fascists.
You might not like it, but the state executing people like him is vital not just for his victims but to prevent very real crimes against humanity as a species.
For the life of me, I just want to know where that rape crap came from. Like… At least they should have asked me first or checked my comment history to understand my view on rape yet they made the assumption and moved on. Ironically, I myself was raped as a teenager /: so congrats to that edgy SJW, they just did something dumb as fuck to a rape victim, big no no in SJW world.
And yet another essay rofl told you that you love it!
Your god is NOT coming to save you because he is not real.
Sorry, could you stop for a moment and please explain to me who you think I am?
Like what’s this stuff about god and genocide? I’m an atheist.
Sorry but…
I want to write this in title, so please imagine me saying this in a REALLY LOUD VOICE just to make sure you don’t respond by jumping into a whole different topic, but what god?!? Where in my profile or my text did I ever say I believe in god? How did you come to this conclusion? Man, I think you’re like… confused.
Do what you tell every rape victim to do when they call you out on your obvious immoral shit: get over it and move on, honey, or the world will move on without you.
I am a rape victim myself. I was raped at age 15/16 by a medical professional. My parents didn’t believe me and the police told me to better not report it because as a girl I’d get into more trouble than it’s worth. It took me lots of therapy to overcome this trauma.
Again, who do you think you’re talking to? You seem to get everything about me wrong in every single post and I don’t understand what would motivate anyone to waste so much time being like this.
This is the world we live in based on the laws of physics and evolution. It is NOT going to change just because you don’t like it.
It’s not going to change if you do like it.
This is why communities not only have the right to kill humans that threaten it, but have a responsibility to.
Sounds like a pretense for human rights violations ROFL
There are things that society can decide. That’s part of being a society. Sometimes it’s stupid, like men can’t wear women’s clothing. Sometimes it’s right, like you can’t be an unrepentant mass murderer and continue to live among us.
On the contrary, this individual already made that choice.
I’m not pro-death penalty at all. Generally quite the opposite. Too many over-zealous prosecutors, too many shitty cops, etc. just trying to be “tough on crime”, close a case and save their jobs. However there have been instances where I don’t have a problem with it. The Nuremberg trials. Or maybe in instances where irrefutable, undeniable proof exists.
That said, I’d far, far prefer this person live in a hole for the rest of their life. Death is too easy an out, and IMO a life with no purpose, future, change, or hope is hell. They should get just that.
It’s not good to report the number of deaths in headlines without humanizing the victims in some way. It’s better to list each individual name in the article itself.
This dude probably thought he was setting a number score that would put him in the spotlight, but he didn’t realize he’s just another tally for the Executioner.
Why just kill him? I didn’t see the point there… What about beating him and mutilate his body again and again and then take him to recover and then again and again beat and mutilate until he is old enough to die for natural reasons?.. seems like a better plan to me.
Despite what I’m about to write, I’m generally against the Death Penalty.
The reason we don’t do what you suggested is that it’s animalistic and inefficient. Think to yourself: would you be better off and contribute more to society if you:
A) Spent all your money feeding, housing, and securely containing a man incapable of reform for the next ten to eighty years on the failing premise that reform is somehow possible for him who will likely never be released.
B) Actually used limited resources on people who can be helped, and who want to be helped.
Emotions can be overwhelming and cause irrational decisions, not unlike the white supremacist who acted on hatred. Do not let yourself be emotional like him. At least, focus your energy and attention on things that matter.
I suppose that’s fair, considering the cost of the shelter in an existing prison is negligible, but that higher cost for the sentence is really only the legal defence costs for people who rely on the state for defence and choose to fight the sentence. The cost of the executions themselves are much cheaper, and I think on average the executions probably would be as well as long as more of them accept the sentence or pay for their own attorneys than the number who fight it on the state’s expense.
The opposite could be true as well though, it could be vastly more expensive to try to execute them if everyone fights it on the state’s expense.
Think about what you’re saying… what good would this do now? You mutilate his body and let him recover then mutilate him again. What do we have now? One shooter with trauma who has been tortured and one heartless person (you) who tortured them.
Did that prevent any shootings in the future? Nope
Did it bring out the human in you? Nope
Did it help us economically save any money? Nope
Did it bring anyone back to life? Nope
Basically, in this scenario, you simply turn yourself into a criminal who probably deserves a similar punishment in that system that you’re criticizing…
That’s pretty much what happens in life imprisonment, and that’s what these ideologue clown shoes think is more humane. Not a single one of them knows what they’re talking about.
There are some people so dangerous that the risk of their return to society needs to be prevented at all costs.
Yes our court systems are imperfect, yes innocents have been sentence to death and executed.
Even with all that taken into consideration there are some people that simply need to be put down and when the evidence is so overwelmingly against them, I have no issues with this being how society keeps itself safe.
The problem is we have no way of guaranteeing an unbiased and thorough justice system, in fact its almost a guarantee to be the opposite of fair and unbiased in so may situations.
Yes they do, because they value protecting their people over appeasing your sensibilities.
And don’t even bother wasting time arguing with me; I already know exactly what you’re going to do – you’re going to bitch to the high heavens with talking point after talking point after talking point, and you’re going to do this because you don’t care about anything other than the way articles like this make you feel. You’re just going to be irrational and not listen, so don’t bother.
Why are you? I explicitly told you I’m not here to discuss, that you’re just wrong and there’s no convincing you because you don’t want to hear the truth. What discussion is there to be had? You just want to bully and guilt-trip people like me into submitting to your opinion and it’s not going to work. Now get out of my inbox, and out of my life.
The reactionary in me thinks “life in solidarity confinement without the chance of parole.”
The me in me says he needs a long time in some sort of rehabilitation program. As much of a monster as he is, he’s a bit of a victim. May he be studied so that we can pinpoint and prevent others from following his path.
They are so much better at this stuff in other developed countries. The US prison system is all about punishment where others focus a lot more on rehabilitation and prevention.
(Not so) fun fact: The US has 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population.
The United States system has financial incentives for low police/prevention and long harsh prison sentences, due to cities paying for police but counties/state paying for prisons. Cities can cut taxes and police and pass the cost onto the county or state.
Ideally you’d want quick guaranteed consequences for breaking the law. We have the complete opposite, and when we do catch you, we impose a huge penalty to make up for all times we probably didnt catch you before.
Maybe the death sentence would be the better option than prison. Not like we are on par with other peers with prisons. Either way I could care less about this one specific case.
Guy kills ten black people and Lemmy comments are all ‘yeah but death sentence and prison are wrong, maybe we should get him a nice job and somewhere to live, I’ll pop round to massage his feet once a week…’
What is a justified consequence for someone that killed people just going about their normal lives? Do the families impacted by this tragedy have any input?
I’d really like for us to move towards a restorative justice system instead of the punitive one we use now. In my mind, that would look something
Seeking input from the people who were impacted by the crime about what would help them move past or recover from the crime.
Separating the perpetrator from society at large while providing the resources to prepare them to reenter society when they no longer pose a threat.
Even those perpetrators who could never be reintroduced to society safely still be treated humanely and with respect.
I can’t remember which off the top of my head, but there’s a country (Scandinavian if my memory is accurate) that provides prisoners with small homes (still within the confines of a prison-like facility that separates them from society at large) which they have to take care of. I believe they even have jobs that let them contribute to society, and they receive counseling and all that as well. When they’re eventually released, they know how to maintain a home, keep a job, etc, so they’re well-prepared to reintegrate with society.
Do you think the families of the victims prefer this as well? Personally I would think the death penalty would give those families closure once it’s done.
Out of pure academic curiosity, how is the death penalty part of this under federal jurisdiction?
The article refers to federal hate crimes.
There are federal crimes that include hate crimes and violation of civil rights, but from what I can tell in the list of federal capital crimes, neither of those appears to me to qualify as subject to the death penalty.
I looked up Derek Chauvin as a base then realized he was never under threat of death penalty.
The only issue with the death penalty is the potential to execute the innocent. There is no danger of that here. I don’t want to share the planet with this racist prick.
The only issue with the death penalty is the potential to execute the innocent.
The issue is the state having the potential to execute.
State executions are wrong, it doesn't matter whether or not he "did it". The State should not execute people.
The other issue is that it quite frequently costs exponentially more to administer the death penalty due to years of appeals. I’m not sure how that would work in this case, since as you said, it’s apparent that the defendant is guilty.
It’s not “a little more” to prosecute a death penalty case. It’s a lot more depending on the state. I strongly recommend reading the link but here are some snippets from it.
A 2003 legislative audit in Kansas found that the estimated cost of a death penalty case was 70% more than the cost of a comparable non-death penalty case. Death penalty case costs were counted through to execution (median cost $1.26 million). Non-death penalty case costs were counted through to the end of incarceration (median cost $740,000).
In Tennessee, death penalty trials cost an average of 48% more than the average cost of trials in which prosecutors seek life imprisonment.
In Maryland death penalty cases cost 3 times more than non-death penalty cases, or $3 million for a single case.
In California the current system costs $137 million per year; it would cost $11.5 million for a system without the death penalty.
That means that the extra expense of pursuing the death penalty has no effect on increasing public safety since the convicted criminal, whether they are executed or are spending the rest of their life in prison, is not a risk to the public. Finally, all that extra money spent on death penalty trials is money that could be better spent on measures that really would improve public safety such as reducing poverty or improving education.
I don’t care. That prick has forfeited his right to keep living. That’s the bottom line. I would rather pay $3 million for him to die that $1 million to keep feeding, housing, and otherwise caring for him.
And face it. You present a false choice. The money would not be spent on education or reducing poverty. It would be used to give the rich larger tax cuts first.
If it were up to me, pricks like this should the tortured to death. Call me ruthless of you want, but what else does the guy who decided to kill innocent people because they are black?
I get that that is your preference. Personally, I would choose to spend the money where it would do some good rather than just slaking some people’s need for revenge.
As I said, there is a zero percent chance of that happening. Death penalty spending is hardly the obstacle to ending poverty, providing health care, investing in infrastructure, or anything else.
And he’ll hardly be rotting. He’ll be getting food, shelter, and healthcare. I’m not saying prison is fun, but they are not just throwing away the key.
As someone who has moral principles, I would rather the process by which he can be executed by the state not exist, because any law that the state can use to rightfully kill a guilty person can be abused to wrongfully kill an innocent. The state can never be truly 100% certain of the defendant’s guilt, and so there can never be a 100% guarantee that only guilty people are executed.
That’s exactly what they said about Cameron Todd Willingham. Professional firefighters took to the stand and said that there was no way his house could have burned the way it did without accelerant. They were as certain of his guilt as you are of this guy’s. It turns out even “100%, no doubt” isn’t a high enough bar.
The next person could be. As I said, any law that can be used to rightfully execute a guilty person can be abused to wrongfully execute an innocent. Not every person on death row is as certain as this case, and as much as you will say “it should only be used when there’s this much proof,” in the real world, it won’t be. Better to be rid of that system altogether. We don’t gain anything from killing someone.
If you could point out even one benefit to the death penalty in our modern world, I’d be willing to consider it. There is none. Not on a moral, societal, safety, or fiscal level. There is certainly harm caused by it, not least of which is the belief that it’s okay to take someone’s life for any other reason than the immediate risk of life and health of another person. Some people think it’s okay to kill 10, some think it’s okay to have the government kill 1.
For many of us, simply knowing we will no longer be sharing this planet with them is enough. That’s a moral and societal benefit most definitely. He who deprived others of life gets deprived life themselves.
Hell, if nothing else, the death penalty can save a trial by providing leverage for a plea. If you are guaranteed life imprisonment, why not force a trial? But if you might be executed in such a clear cut case, maybe you plead guilty on exchange for life imprisonment to save your life. Save victims having to testify.
The bottom line for me is that this guy is pure evil. The cops shouldn’t have taken him alive to begin with.
There is a moral cost for treating life casually. When police kill a suspect who shoplifted $100 from a store and engineer some flimsy excuse to claim self defense when they flee or use excessively brutal force when arresting a drug user and possible petty counterfeiter isn’t so surprising when we have the public advocating for summary police justice rather than doing what they can to uphold the rule of law, which does not include gunning down criminals in the street.
Also, a whopping 2.3% of federal criminal cases go to trial already. So your other justification for capital punishment is that number is just too high?
Why do you people present this is as an answer to the previous statement? EVERYONE knows this at this point, it doesn’t change thee previous statement in the slightest. It’s like when people smugly respond “that’s not how free speech works”…no, not according to everyone who prefers to limit it, it ain’t. You’re rebutting someone’s principles with regulations made by people don’t care for that specific philosophy and saying more about yourself than you think.
His appeals will be focused on procedure, rather than facts. Pretty much the go-to defense strategy when a suspect is caught red handed. If you can’t argue the facts of the case, try to get the facts thrown out on technicality (like maybe the police mishandled evidence so it’s not admissible anymore,) or try to minimize the person’s crime as much as possible. Try to get the sentence reduced, try to downplay the convict’s actions, emphasize how much they have changed, etc…
Basically just damage control. Accept that you aren’t going to come out of it unscathed, so just work to mitigate the damage instead of trying to avoid it altogether.
I don’t think it’s barbaric at all. Hell, if anything, making people care for this asshole for 50+ years is barbaric. There is no rehabilitation for this guy. There is no way he becomes a productive member of society.
I want to believe that, the goal should be rehabilitation somehow. That said, at this moment in time when we don’t have good rehabilitation implementations, I find this turn of events acceptable based on the crime committed.
True, in most countries the prison system is crap. I just don’t like when people paint other people as monsters, no matter what they’ve done. Rehabilitation to me doesn’t necessarily equal them being free ever again. Just means that they’ve changed as a person and truly regret their actions.
What about the families of these 10 victims? They deserve justice more than this kid deserves freedom. I’m not saying he can’t be rehabilitated. I am saying that it is very injust to let this kid to ever have a free life after he ended the lives of 10 people.
I mean I’m not 100 percent that all of them would want it, but it’s what the families want in the majority of these cases. Anytime you see a murderer come up for appeal you usually see family or friends of the victim in interviews saying how they don’t want that to happen.
How often do you actually see what victims’ families say when murderers are put on parole? For me it’s occasionally when the news reports on it. I don’t think we can say what the majority want.
A lot actually. I watch a lot of true crime documentaries. It happens the vast majority of the time. There are a few cases of mostly Christian people forgiving their families murderer, but most do not ever forgive someone for something like that.
Which is why you execute them immediately, not 20-30 years later. I don’t want to hear about innocent people in jail that long, I don’t even want to hear about guilty people in jail very long. Just kill em and move on regardless, it’s really less cruel.
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