daftone

Do you think the death penalty is good or bad. Throughout history it has been practiced. Going by the bible eye for an eye it was practiced. What are your views. Is it good or bad? Does it help at all?

Salah

I am a believer in the death penalty for only the most disgusting criminals - hardcore serial killers ("Bind Torture Kill" types), rapists, and pedophiles.

Even then, I see execution only as a method of getting rid of the most obscene and destructive elements of our society - basically, taking out the trash. With executions are they are carried out in the modern Western World, they do not serve the purpose they did in ancient times - watching a man flogged and crucified, or fed to lions, would be a strong encouragement to not do whatever he had been guilty of. I do not view modern execution as an object lesson for those watching it so much as a method of disposing of cold-hearted murderers and pedophiles.

Shadow Dragon

I'm for the death penalty. The types of crimanals that Salah ad-Din described need to be put down, in the same manner one would put down a rabid animal. As long as they live they are still a danger to others, such as criminals of lesser offenses and guards.

Andy007

No.

It's barbaric and it just makes the state as bad as the criminal. It's also the easy way out for murders.. I'd rather die than spend the rest of most of my life in prison. If those in terrible pain suffering from a terminal illness do not have the right to die (euthansia/assisted suicide) why should criminals?

There have been cases where people have been convicted of a crime (where they may have been setenced to death in another country) and later found innocent - there's always that risk!

To counter the argument that it'll decrease crime, just to look at America (haha...)

Solidaire

I am against it. Death penalty is murder, whatever the reasons behind it. Criminals should be put away, if possible rehabilitated, if not, separated from society.
Who will judge who is to die? What about human errors in judgmenent?

Andy007

An eye for an makes the whole world blind.. I bet you haven't heard that one before! :P

Salah

I have. And that's why the state - rather than the bereaved family - should get rid of the dirtbag that raped a little girl and buried her body out in the woods.

beorna

I don't think death penalty is murder, as prison is no deprivation of liberty.
The problem with the death penalty is that it is quite final. if you realize an executed man is innocent, it is difficult to bring him back alive.

Look at the US, there are to many people who were innocent sentenced to death and I don't want to know how it is in China.
If somebody is a threat for the society led him into jail till the end of his life.

beorna

I agree with you, if it were my daughter I would cut him into peaces. But what's if the DNA test was manipulated or wrong attested, if the police tortured the man until he said he was it, if the lawyer is dreaming of his new boat instead of doing his job and so on......?

sylla1

The ongoing general international trend is definitively against death penalty; in fact, its practice and scope are currently considered within the regular assessment of Human rights' status of any nation.

That said, I'm well aware that was not your question: you asked for personal opinions.

The most obvious problem of the Death penalty is its absolute irreversibility, given that no system of justice is nor is expected to be perfect, as the case of Fredrick Peacock illustrates http://www.homednadirect.co.uk/dna-n...-innocent.html.

IMHO, the Death penalty could only be justified in extremis, when a significant risk from the survival of the convict for the society is absolutely unavoidable by incarceration or equivalent measures (e.g. martial law under severe national crisis). As by definition such cases would be extraordinary, Death penalty should be avoided in regular civil justice.