“Using that logic, the death penalty, to me, says that this crime was worse than that crime. Or that this victim was more innocent than that victim. Or that this criminal is more evil than that criminal.”

Um, yep. In fact, the differential punishment of crime based on the recognition of mitigating circumstances (and thereby of differing degrees of responsibility and guilt) is pretty much the entire point of penal systems – a system that to some arguable degree of accuracy reflects our society’s view on the functioning of morality.
Here’s another quote:

“How is any of that anything you would be willing to say to a victim’s family? Does the prosecutor really get to stand up and say, “Well, he went fast, so it wasn’t that badâ€??”

Yep. We punish housebreaking differently from armed robbery, just like we punish manslaughter differently than fucking sadistic torture murderers. So yeah, attorneys do get to say things exactly like that, and victim’s families get to hear that all the time. Got a better idea, fuckwit?

Seriously, go reread what you wrote, then deal with the fact that what you wrote was stupid. I mean, it’s good that you’re against the death penalty, but I think you probably got there by accident. But that’s ok, I guess – just don’t mistake “won’t someone please think of the victim’s families� for actual thought.

So, okay, yes, I want it applied evenly. As in, not at all.

I take back my apology. You are an idiot.

BTW d. Sidhe – When you suggest as objections to the death penalty that 1. it isn’t applied to all serial killers & 2. since it isn’t applied evenly it thereby effectively values some murders over others, it just fucking follows that you have to believe that 1. it should be applied to all serial killers and 2. (since you want it applied evenly) to all other murders, if it is to be applied consistently. I understand that objection perfectly – it’s called argument from consistency. I just think it a fucking dumb objection to the state killing people.

Look, I thought what I said was pretty clear. I do not think the state should make decisions about whose life is more or less worthwhile, and that goes for the victims as well. If you kill a drug dealer for money, you are just as guilty of murder as if you kill a housewife for her car. If you *are* a drug dealer who kills someone for money, you are just as guilty as if you are a housewife who kills someone in a road rage incident.

I’ve personally heard few death penalty supporters who will not admit that at least part of it is about either “closure” or “revenge” or someone “not deserving to live anymore”.

Using that logic, the death penalty, to me, says that this crime was worse than that crime. Or that this victim was more innocent than that victim. Or that this criminal is more evil than that criminal.

How is any of that anything you would be willing to say to a victim’s family? Does the prosecutor really get to stand up and say, “Well, he went fast, so it wasn’t that bad”?

Is that something you’d want to hear when you’ve just lost someone you love? We build up this whole “This criminal is evil and inhuman and deserves to die and it will give the family closure” structure, and how can anyone in a case where the death penalty is not sought feel that they are being deprived of closure, or that their suffering is being dismissed?

I can almost sort of see where you got the notion that I think someone being given the death penalty is the best possible result for the family of the victim. I absolutely do not, but it does appear to be a common belief among supporters. And that logic hurts people I doubt supporters mean to be hurting.

We are clearly, in many cases, not willing to execute criminals. My place in this is that I don’t understand why we draw that line where we do and decide that we *are* willing to execute others.

That said. I do understand that it can be a useful tool for prosecutors. Dandy. It’s just the killing-people part I wish we could get rid of. But I’m kind of a hard-liner on that, and most people are not. If you’ve come to a different conclusion than I, and if you act on it, say by voting for someone who signs death warrants right and left, then I want to know you’ve got some reasons for it. Even if I don’t like your reasons.

Where the fuck did I say that? In fact, I oppose the death penalty because I think it’s barbaric and there are better ways to handle criminals.

What I *said* was, I oppose the state telling some dead woman’s mother that her daughter’s death was not as bad as that of someone else’s daughter, and therefore only one of them gets “revenge”. To turn it around, I don’t think the state should be telling someone that her daughter’s death was *worse*, either.

Those value judgments are almost inherently arbitrary on anything other than a sheer body count basis. And if we can’t make those decisions consistent, then we need to stop doing it at all.

Pay attention, next time. Idiot.

(*** I could have gave the conservative Israel firster GOP loser terms liberals, or “secularists”, I am a liberal, a secularist, and a stone cold white racist, I don’t think they contridict as much as the conservative jesus Israel firster worldview),

All that’s left for the white criminal is satan. No community. No forgiveness. No posturing of the victims families to avoid making racist remarks about the dark demon who’s an “innocent” “victim of white privalege”.

A white is a psychopath, a black, made the wrong discision with the wrong crowd. Hail satan.

If I were impaneled on a jury, and I was asked what my feelings were about the death penalty, I think I would say I was generally opposed.

But….

I used to be completely and unequivicably opposed to the death penalty.

But then I began to doubt my own certainty. Are there people whose crimes are so heinous that no other punishment is appropriate? Are there people who are too dangerous to allow to live? I appreciate the question posed above, “What do you do with them?”

Yes, I know there is injustice, and I think that in most capital cases, the death penalty is abused, and unfairly imposed.

But what do you do with a Richard Ramirez, a Ted Bundy, a Timothy McVeigh? What would you do with a Jeffrey Dahmer, had he not been killed in prison? What do you do with a serial killer, someone who really enjoys killing others?

Maybe it’s just my own emotional weakness — I lived in the Pacific Northwest during the time that Westley Alan Dodd was killing children, and my own child was the same age as his victims. The news account of what Dodd revealed about how he killed – and how cold-heartedly he didn it – a toddler from Oregon was chilling to me as a parent. Dodd also stated that he enjoyed killing and he would kill again if he had any opportunity to do so.

I cannot think of any possiblity where this man would have been rehabilitated. I cannot think of any reason to have kept this man alive into his old age.

So I began to doubt.

I still can’t take a complete and wholehearted stand. I remain – generally opposed. But not completely….

Call me a hypocrit, call me a moral weakling, call me whatever. I am human enough to understand that there are things that we will always doubt.

1) The death penalty is rarely applied in the case of, say, serial killers. In my state, at least, they often get to plea bargain into life-without-parole because the prosecutors don’t want to take a chance of losing, and because death penalty trials for serial killers are hugely expensive.

2) This bothers me mostly because as far as I’m concerned, the state has no business stepping in and telling the grieving friends and family of one victim that the murder wasn’t as bad as this other murder, so we will execute this guy and not that guy. But this argument leaves an out for, say, Timothy McVeigh and Gary Ridgway, one of whom got the death penalty, and one of whom plea bargained into life-without-parole.

mikey

I guess I wasn’t clear enough on my “reasons to opose the death penalty” list. I think it’s physically impossible to be certain that all those issues are resolved in any given case, particularly this one: “the possibility of a clean trial still coming up with the wrong answer.”

Because we are humans and make mistakes, it is not possible to justly impose capital punishment. Since we can’t do it 100% fairly and 100% accurately, we can’t do it. If we ever manage to resolve all those possible error conditions, then it’s time to have the debate over whether the death penatly is morally repugnant in its own right. Until that moment arrives, however, the moral implications of the death penalty are completely irrelevant.

Hey, I’ll bite…
Was he a Marine?