A word to those against the death penalty...

[strredwolf]

Okay, so you've caught and solidly convicted Jack the Ripper.  He's out of appeals, as every angle conceivable has been covered.  So he's going to be there for a long time, well past his natural life span.

Um, there's a problem.  Infact, three problems.

1. The current jails are overcrowded, irrespective of race and gender.  Alot of them are shuffling around, or giving out good behavior credits like candy.  Unfortunately, you can't build any more due to the budget and the usual "Not In My Back Yard" syndrome everyone is afflicted with.
   
2. They are also understaffed due to budget cuts, and the staff there is constantly put into stressful conditions.
3. And in the long term, a lifer (w/o parole or parole past his natural lifespan) will use more financial resources than a death row inmate.  In some cases, the lifer uses much more year-to-year than the death row inmate.

So you want all death row inmates to be lifers?  You need to come up with solutions to the above, without increasing the financial strains and blowing up the budget.  Besides, Maryland's in a long-term deficit, and the feds aren't much better now with a war going on and whatnot.

You can't.  You need more resources, and it's a growing problem.  While you can legislate some of the problem away (adjusting what is a crime, and their penalties), you need to address overcrowding.  The cheapest way is the death penalty.

Is it humane?  NO IT'S NOT.  NETHER IS GETTING KILLED/ROBBED/MAIMED/ETC.  So stop saying it's so.  We know already, and you're missing the other side of the coin.

So?  I'm for the death penalty.  I'm against "life w/o parole" as it's a waste of money and space.  I'm for a law which requires judges to upgrade the sentence to death for any sentence that gives the convicted at least 150 years of jailtime before parole.  And frankly put, I'd give them a time limit of 10 years for direct-from-inmate appeals while raising the bar for third-party appeals.

Comments

[bibliophage.livejournal.com]

I'm _for_ the death penalty. However, I'd prefer to see sentence executed at the scene of the crime, preferably at the hand of the intended victim.

Death row _does_ cost more, but that's because those inmates are We from the rest of the criminals. They don't tend to do any more appeals than other high stakes crimes, they just get the attention for it.

The 'three strikes' rule has helped a lot, however. (No, that doesn't mean you only get three trials. It means you only get three appeals based on mistrial. You can have all you want based on new evidence)

Our system, and that of most countries, is broken at a more basic level. We criminalize behaviors that should more rightly be handled through societal pressure - drug abuse, for example.

In Victorian England, it was legal to smoke opium, inject morphine, and similar - and it wasn't a huge problem. It was VERY frowned upon by society itself, because it was though to be a sign of a weak person - and that it reflected not upon society, but themselves.

Every time something gets criminalized, it then generates more crime, and more _interest_ in the activity. Look at drugs. We've gone from the opiates and generic cocaine to crystal meth and a host of designer drugs - each one invented to be 'legal' to start with or to give a new criminal thrill.

Death penalty? Heck yes! Cruel and Unusual? I don't think so. We're not pulling them apart slowly by iron hooks, for example.

We could move to crucifiction, that was certainly not unusual historically. It was the main form of punishment in the Roman Empire (and Republic). Therefore, it's not 'unusual', and I don't see how it's more cruel than leaving them on a 'death row' for five years waiting for that last minute.

I'm in favor of firing squads; or at least one person with a gun.

"You've confessed to the crime to the jury, to me (the judge), and to the police. Sentence shall be passed immediately. Baliff, take him out back and shoot him"

As far as I'm concerned, confession should short circuit EVERYTHING. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. If someone later wants to try that it was a 'false' confession, then they just picked a REALLY interesting way to commit suicide.

As for moral and ethical? Right. "Thou shalt not commit murder" is not the same as putting down a rabid animal. (That's the better translation, rather than 'thou shalt not kill'). That's all that people like that are. When there is no way they can grant restitution for their actions, then the only thing they have left to give up is their life. You aren't doing it to 'punish' them. That's a stupid way of looking at it anyway. Punishment is to teach someone not to do things again. The death penalty is to say "You can't atone for your actions, and we're going to make sure you can't do it again." You don't agonize over shooting a rattlesnake that just bit your best friend - it's pointless, and the rattler doesn't care. It's a snake, and you simply deal with it before it can bite you.