[quote]Sloth wrote:
Mikeyali wrote:
Sloth wrote:
But, since we’re speaking about a US state, it’s “Welcome to civilization!” There’s plenty of people that disagree with my views on here. But, most of those, I feel, come from an honest and consistent point of view.
What’s your take Sloth? I’d be interested to hear it.
mike
This is another tough issue that’s kind of heartbreaking. I imagine if one of my family members were killed. It would probably eat me up to know the killer, while behind bars, would be safe from my hands while the state refused to carry out my satisfaction.
Anyways, what did men do earlier in history, or even today in some regions of the world, where goverment was weak or nonexistent? Blood feuds, I suppose. I imagine one man’s family would seek ‘justice’ against the killer. And then the killer’s family would often turn around and avenge their kin. I suppose the true point of the Death Penalty is cut off a chain of retaliations within a civil society. The state ends the killer’s life and that’s that, go back to business as usual.
My Catholic tradition instructs that when a society is capable of incarcerating an individual, keeping society reasonably safe, it should show mercy. Of course we’re reasonably capable of keeping murderers behind bars, so the call for mercy is appropriate for this nation. Sorry for bringing up religion, but it’s an important part of my life. I try to combine belief with reason when I can.
My own reasoning tells me the death penalty should be avoided. We’ve all heard of cases where DNA, or some other form of evidence not availabe at trial, has freed a man serving time. There’s too many instances of innocent men being found guilty for me to grant that kind of power to the state.
We can set a man free again, if it is realized that an innocent man has been wrongly imprisoned. We can’t give back his lost time, nor take back any mental and physical hardships suffered, but we can give him the rest of his life back. Not so when an innocent man is executed by the state. There is no way to right that wrong. No “rest of his life” to give back.
Again, it’s a tough issue. I imagine the parents of a murdered daughter not having the ability to move on and find happiness, knowing a killer still breathes air, while their daughter has been reduced to a skeleton under 6 feet of dirt. It’s not an easy thing to think about.
But, ultimately for the reasons above, I’ve come to settle on the belief that society should move away from the Death Penatly. I’d leave it up to the states to decide, of course. [/quote]
You put it very well, I did not have the time to respond like you did.
While I am not steeped in Catholic tradition, the Pope’s views on this have had quite the effect on me on this particular issue.
I can only answer this honestly. If someone killed my wife or child, I would go to great lengths to kill them myself. There are few on this planet that hold vendettas like I do, and for that ultimate injustice, the ultimate price should be paid. But not by the state’s hand- by mine. And I would try my damndest. The problem with this, and this theory, is that you are so embroiled in the shit, so enamored of the fact that you could get blood for blood for a heinous crime against you, is that you lose sight of due process, and your thinking is skewed to a maximal degree. Hence, of course, why we have laws.
There is a humane side to me that cannot get over the fact that unless there was absolute DNA proof of the crime, there is a possibility that you are convicting the wrong man, and sending the wrong man to death. The crime of sending an innocent man to death is the worst crime that can be committed- stealing a man’s life, his family, his future, for a crime that he did not commit. There are too many instances of men being exonerated and freed after extended jail terms for me to say that there have not been many innocent men put to death over the last few hundred years.
The blood of innocents cannot be shed in retribution in crimes great or small. America cannot call it self any better than the Muslim countries who execute people if it continues this practice. As said previously, we are at the point where we can keep them behind bars forever, and let them die there… and mercy must be shown to these, for if we kill them, we are no better than they are. America wants to be a country that learns to take the high road… well, we can start right there.
Like I said, The Green Mile affected me greatly on this, as well as looking at the clock at midnight that one night and realizing that Stanley T. Williams’ life was being ended that night. Some of these guys can do more good being alive than dead.
I understand some will not agree with my examples, but the extinguishment of a life is far more serious than some internet discussion… and it’s always easier to say, “Ahh fuck him he deserved it.” That, my friends, is not the high road.