I think execution is just wrong. I think many of the people who are executed have done wretched things but surely we don't have the right to kill them.
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Even if our justice system was perfect and only convicted the people who actually did the crime... I would still be against the death penalty. But here in the real world we frequently murder innocent people and we, as a collective, have their blood on our hands.
You're absolutely right. (Cops are especially guilty).
If they attempted and fail, the death sentencw should be commuted because surely it is a miraculous sign from God that the person is innocent.
Trial by Ordeal
I used to be a proponent of the death penalty. Someone shoots up a school or is a serial rapist, they forfeit their right to live and are beyond rehabilitation
But the book "The Chamber" by John Grisham completely changed my mind. One of the only books to ever make me cry, I realized what an awful responsibility the state has when deciding what to do with the worst of the worst. It's so easy to lean into retribution but I decided that day I don't want to support legally sanctioned murder. I'd rather my tax dollars go into keeping prisoners alive than for them to be spent on taking lives for no other reason than blood lust.
Then of course you start digging into all the problems with criminal justice; innocent prisoners, corruption, racism... it's wildly irresponsible to trust any justice system to be so infallible as to decide who lives and dies.
If we believe in the death penalty, then we believe that the state has a right to end someone's life because they unjustly took someone else's.
So if a person was executed and was found posthumously to actually have been innocent, then would we be justified in executing, say, the DA who prosecuted the crime?
Yeah we totally would, and if the original murderer was found to not be innocent we would have to kill the person who killed the person who killed the murderer…
And perhaps at that point, enough people might realize that giving the state the right to execute people is extremely fraught and finally decide it's not worth it.
But it seems like maybe the bloodlust is too strong.
Do we ever give the death penalty to someone who kills someone by accident or in an unfortunate situation?
You analogy might be relevant if the DA knew the person was innocent and intentionally framed them and/or continued to prosecute. But it's not remotely the same to have done so and been mistaken.
Do we ever give the death penalty to someone who kills someone by accident or in an unfortunate situation?
No, but we sometimes give the death penalty to... people who didn't do anything wrong? And maybe, just maybe, it's too easy, too consequence-free, for the state to take someone's life, if it just happens by accident sometimes.
The difference is that we don't give the death penalty to somebody who accidentally does something wrong. And we especially don't do that in such a deliberate drawn out process.
Yes, and I would argue that it's crueler to put an innocent person through that drawn out process than it is someone whose mistake or carelessness actually caused an innocent life to be lost.
It is a mistake worth dying over? Maybe not, but as long as there is no consequence to getting it wrong, there is literally zero incentive for public officials to get it right, especially those wanting to prove themselves "tough on crime"
I'm not sure why you act as if all innocent people are completely innocent. It could be that they made mistakes and we're careless and that was a part of what led them to being falsely convicted.
Literally zero incentive is an extremely high bar and certainly incorrect.
I understand wanting to ensure there's a better incentive than currently exists, but giving them the death penalty for false death penalties is just a roundabout way of stopping the death penalty. So you may as well just do that directly.
I’m not sure why you act as if all innocent people are completely innocent.
Wow.
What I mean is that take a situation where someone was convicted of murder, but the reality is that was a false conviction and they were only guilty of manslaughter.
I shouldn't have used the "innocent person" phrasing because that's too low resolution for this discussion. You can't always neatly put a person into innocent/guilty categories.
Well... That is terrifying.
"Lol, u shoulda seen ur face when u thought we were gonna do it."
They won't do nitrogen because there is no protocol despite being legal for five years. But clearly the protocol for lethal injection is shit. So instead of using that would almost certainly be painless they will do something that has caused many painful deaths over the years simply because they've done it before.
How hard can it be
It's very easy. A room full of nitrogen gas does it painlessly. But people suck ass and don't want a painless, easy execution. They want hangings, injections that cause incredible pain, electrocution, etc.
What's wrong with a firing squad?
The state having the power of life and death over its citizenry is what's wrong.
That's an opinion about the death penalty in general. Fact is the state does have that power, so when faced with difficulty carrying out execution, why not the firing squad?
Historically the guys using firing squads have not generally been the good guys.
You could say the same thing about guys who use capital punishment, like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and America.
Yes, I would say the same thing about capital punishment, I'm not a fan of it personally.
You're almost there...
It's considered unreliable and inhumane, I think. Yes, I am aware that apparently the current methods are also not reliable.
Personally, I'm against executions on principle, but if we are to have executions, I think I'd prefer mine to be by firing squad first, guillotine second. I would not like to have a lethal injection or electric chair.