The Death Penalty

[Guest LadyC]

I am against the death penalty.

The question we must ask is why we do it? It does not deter crime, we know that. It is very expensive it is cheaper to lock someone else up for life. We kill only a very small percentage of those who actually get the penalty. It is inconsistent, a murderer who is black gets killed more than a murderer who is white, a male murderer is killed at higher rates than female murderers, poor murderers are killed at higher rates than rich ones, and we make mistakes. The court system in our country is far far from perfect, so yes we will and have killed innocent people.

I don't get it what is the point? The only point I can come up with is pure revenge, the good feeling of watching some admittedly rotten human being suffer. But I think a life in prison is actually worse. From a Christian standpoint would we not want to give a person a chance to repent?

this is totally incorrect. caucasians by far make up the majority of people who get executed. there may be more blacks in prison than whites, but there are more whites on death row than any other ethnicity. statistically, most serial murderers are white.

here's the stats, accurate up to the beginning of this month:

US executions by race: white = 56.9% | black = 34.2% | hispanic = 6.6% | other = 2.3%

furthermore, the victims of those who have been executed are even more overwhelmingly white.... 79.3% to be exact.

i got these statistics from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.ph...d=5&did=184 where you can also view a chart of executions by race per state.

[Kabowd]

I am against the death penalty.

The question we must ask is why we do it? It does not deter crime, we know that. It is very expensive it is cheaper to lock someone else up for life. We kill only a very small percentage of those who actually get the penalty. It is inconsistent, a murderer who is black gets killed more than a murderer who is white, a male murderer is killed at higher rates than female murderers, poor murderers are killed at higher rates than rich ones, and we make mistakes. The court system in our country is far far from perfect, so yes we will and have killed innocent people.

I don't get it what is the point? The only point I can come up with is pure revenge, the good feeling of watching some admittedly rotten human being suffer. But I think a life in prison is actually worse. From a Christian standpoint would we not want to give a person a chance to repent?

this is totally incorrect. caucasians by far make up the majority of people who get executed. there may be more blacks in prison than whites, but there are more whites on death row than any other ethnicity. statistically, most serial murderers are white.

here's the stats, accurate up to the beginning of this month:

US executions by race: white = 56.9% | black = 34.2% | hispanic = 6.6% | other = 2.3%

furthermore, the victims of those who have been executed are even more overwhelmingly white.... 79.3% to be exact.

i got these statistics from http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.ph...d=5&did=184 where you can also view a chart of executions by race per state.

Right, like I said earlier, there's alot of misinformation in this topic. Even if we set executions aside, there are more whites convicted and imprisoned than blacks overall. (see here). I'll probably have time to post more tomorrow (hopefully), but it's kind of difficult to have a discussion if people begin with biases and assumptions based on misinformation. I'd just encourage those opposed to the death penatly to do some solid research before they bring their objections. Most of the objections being raised can be easily refuted with correct information.

[Guest LadyC]

well, you just corrected some of my own misinformation, and for that i owe you a debt of gratitude! i thought there actually were more blacks then whites in the general prison population. i guess i bought into a tiny corner of the race-card propaganda!

[Arthur Durnan]

The death penalty for convicted murderers is the most effective deterrent in the universe for preventing additional murders by the convicted (then executed) killer....and THAT is the most important deterrent of all due to the horrendous fact of the increasing number of ADDITIONAL murders being committed today by convicted-but-not-executed killers! America is drowning in bloated Death Rows of States afraid to put FINIS to decades & decades of notorious appeals while the poor victims of those convicted killers lie a-rotting in their graves.

http://arthurdurnan.freeyellow.com

[Akiko]

So (to clarify this for myself) it is all right for the government to issue the death penalty because God has set the government in its place?

If this is correct, I have a few more questions to ask. (I seem to be fully of them lately )

How do you know when the government is INcorrect? Such as in Bible times when Pharoah (yes, I know it is misspelled but I'm on a school computer and don't have much time) ordered all male babies killed.

And assuming that the death penalty is okay in a Christian viewpoint, should we change our laws on who gets the death penalty, such as when the jury/judge is CERTAIN that the person has committed the crime (such as DNA evidence or photo evidence)?

[Guest LadyC]

my personal view is that the death penalty should not be an option in cases where dna evidence does not exist. as i've said before, i think any death row inmates convicted without DNA evidence should have their sentences commuted to life. i also think dna evidence should be analyzed by a neutral third party lab, with no way for the lab tech to identify whose dna or for what purpose they are analyzing it. control by numbers vs. names. let evidence in a murder case be treated the same as the evidence for a paternity test.

the government may allow abortions, but will never require abortions. at least not in this country, and not in our lifetime.

as for the pharoah's orders to kill all firstborn males (and no, you didn't misspell it), God deals directly with those rulers who violate His commands. those babies were innocent of having committed any crimes and their deaths were unjust. as for our government today, if anything, they are more lenient than God's law is. makes me wonder how God will deal with that in the eternal scheme of things... but for now He is definitely allowing our country to reap what it sows by not enforcing biblical standard.

[Arthur Durnan]

DNA is an excellent tool, albeit one (powerful) additional tool to be sure. There are also confessions by convicted killers, spoken threats that were carried out, eye-witnesses to the crime, finger-prints left on the body, semen matches (via aforementioned DNA). The essential problem with the judicial procedure is that it hesitates for long decades to implement the penalty imposed by the courts, which delay makes it a laughing-stock. In the meantime, convicted killers murder again in prison, escape and kill outside in the community, search for witnesses and even live for many more years undetected. Every American State should emulate the States of Texas & Florida. Convicted killers know to not mess with them.

http://arthurdurnan.freeyellow.com

[Kabowd]

If we look at places like Texas which does actually use the death penalty, have they seen lower rates of crime for the past 20 years than states which do not have the death penalty? Not from what I have seen, it seems to make no difference.

I have to question where you've received any of the information you've brought forth on this issue. Thus far, nearly everything you've stated has been incorrect. First your statistics regarding races, now your statistics regarding Texas. Here's a graph that might help. It shows you that Texas crime rates declined more rapidly than they declined in the United States overall between 1990 and 1999:

Graph Showing Crime Decline

And as far as being a deterrant, based on the most recent empirical evidence available about the deterrent effect of captial punishment, I'd argue that imposing the death penalty is not only permissable but morally obligatory. The reason I make such a bold statement is because the most recent research indicates that each execution prevents some eighteen murders, on average.* If that is even close to being correct, then refusal to enforce capital punishment effectively condemns a large number of innocent people...which makes it much more of a risk not to impose it than to impose it. Given that foregoing the death penalty of one murderer could thereby be condemning upwards of eighteen innocent people to a violent death, this would make opposing capital punishment much more reprehensible than supporting it.

Even if you reject the numbers (as some will), it doesn't make sense to ignore the fact that research indicates that it does have a deterrant effect. If it saves lives, then imposing the death penalty is no longer morally unacceptable, but becomes morally obligatory.

Secondly, it is already a fact that not not executing criminals is much more of a risk than executing them.

So (to clarify this for myself) it is all right for the government to issue the death penalty because God has set the government in its place?

Yes

And assuming that the death penalty is okay in a Christian viewpoint, should we change our laws on who gets the death penalty, such as when the jury/judge is CERTAIN that the person has committed the crime (such as DNA evidence or photo evidence)?

That already is the law. It's the prosecutor's job to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the person accused is guilty of the crime. They can't just imply that they did it. They have to have proof. Don't let people tell you that there are multiple thousands of innocent people being put to death. That is ridiculous. They're watching WAY too much tv, that is not the truth. Since 1976 (the year the Supreme Court totally revised the death penalty) there have been approximately 944 executions and only 1 proven case of an innocent person being executed. Especially now with DNA technology the liklihood of someone being wrongly convicted is extremely rare. I've posted this many many times, but since you asked I'll post it again. There are multiple "hurdles" a prosecutor must go through in order to bring someone to trial and get a conviction. It is FAR more likely that guilty people go free than it is for an innocent person to be convicted. Here's some of those legal hurdles:

1. The Miranda Doctrine - we've all seen this on tv and in movies. Basically, before a person can even be questioned by police, they have to be warned that he "has the right to remain silent, any statements he makes might be used against him and he has a right to the presence of counsel, retained or appointed." It sounds fair enough. However, just this simple doctrine has allowed countless loopholes that has prevented numerous criminals from paying for their crimes. Convictions are routinely overturned due to technicalities regarding the Miranda. One example would be Escobedo vs. Illinois. Escobedo was a guy who was questioned for the murder of his brother-in-law, but he refused to make any statements. Several days later, another suspect was located who implicated Escobedo. During his second interrogation, Escobedo claimed (of course) that the other supsect was lying. He had an attorney, but he was not in the room. The detective asked him if he'd call the other suspect a liar to his face and Escobedo said yes. When they brought the other man in the room, Escobedo immediately shouted something like "I didn't shoot him, you did it!" ....which implicated himself since he showed firsthand knowledge of the murder. Long story short..even though the police had not used coercion, they hadn't used force, intimidation, etc....Escobedo was able to get his conviction overturned because the moment he incriminated himself his attorney was not in the room. And that is just one example.

2. Police Laws/Search Warrants - this sort of goes along with the Miranda..but a little bit more confusing. Basically, the law requires police to supposedly know and understand thousands of rules and laws and interpret them on the spot...in moments of extreme stress and horror. The law is confusing enough, even to lawyers themselves...yet we expect police officers to arrive on the scene of a horrific crime and ponder the Fourth Ammendment. There was a case in New Hampshire where a man kidnapped a 14 year old girl and held her in his apartment for 4 days. He raped her repeatedly and threatened to kill her and her family if she tried to escape. Acting on a tip, the police arrived at the apartment and the girl came to the door (it was bolted and the kidnapper was gone at the time). The officers broke in. After the girl told them about what he had done, they searched the apartment and found guns and ammunition. The guy went to trial and was found guilty (he also had a long criminal record) but in the court of appeals, his conviction was overturned because the criminal himself had not given permission to search his apartment. The court stated that the police officers should've freed the girl first, then obtained a search warrant for the apartment. How absurd is this?

3. Speedy Trial - this is basically rules that say if a case doesn't go to trial within a certain period of time, it's dismissed or reversed. It was intended to protect ppl from being held for excessive amounts of time before coming to trial. However, as with most other things, it's being abused...and used as a loophole. For instance, a person can be assigned a court date and then subsequently "disappear" while out on bail. If they aren't found within a certain amount of time, they can reappear and their defense attorney can file that their charges be dismissed because they were "denied" their rights to a speedy trial. This is so stupid. The person can FLEE to avoid punishment, and then use this very disobedience to hide behind the law and avoid punishment again. Yes, this is legal.

4. Discovery Statutes - this is one of the things that makes my brother's blood boil. They vary from state to state, but basically they require that the prosecution turn over their files to the defense, but in most cases the defense does not have the same obligation. Thus...the defense attorney essentially bases their entire defense around what the prosecution is going to be bringing forth. They know ahead of time what's coming. Example: the O.J. Simpson trial. Before the trial, OJ had told police he was sleeping inside his house when the murders occured and he hadn't heard the limo driver ring the buzzer. But...once the defense attorney's reveiwed the prosecutor's case, they realized they could no longer use this story. For one, the limo driver reported seeing a man run across the lawn and two, the prosecution had records of cell phone calls made from Simpson's car during the time in question. All the defense had to do, was change their story from sleeping inside the house...to playing golf in the yard. Another danger with this practice is witness intimidation. Heath told me of a case in New York where the member of a large gang was being brought to trial. The prosecution had a crucial witness, but wanted to protect their identity and refused to turn their name over to the defense. But, the judge (acting on the rules of discovery) ordered that they be given to the defense. The prosecutor waited until the day before the trial was to start.....and that night, the witness was murdered.

5. The Priviledge Against Self-Incrimination - this means that a defendant doesn't have to testify. It sounds simple enough, but did you know that if a person refuses to testify the Judge has to tell the jury that they cannot draw any conclusions based on the defendants refusal to testify? Here we have a person on trial...probably the very person who knows the MOST about the incident...and if they refuse to talk, we can't draw any conclusions from that? A person can be charged with brutally murdering someone, yet in many cases they can't even be asked "Did you do it?" while in the presence of the court.

6. The Court of Appeals - bascially, you can have DNA evidence, a "by-the-book" interrogation, a confession and even a conviction...and it can still be overturned in the appellate court on a technicality. The person can be CLEARLY guilty...and yet released because there was a minor error somewhere along the "due process" route.

In all honesty, even executing those who are clearly guilty is hard enough because of the appeals processes. John Wayne Gacy (the serial killer who admitted to killing 33 boys) didn't get executed for like 14 years because his attorney's filed over 500 appeals. And none of those appeals even claimed that he was innocent.

Again, if the numbers in the recent research* are even close to being correct, then refusal to enforce capital punishment effectively condemns a large number of innocent people...which makes it much more of a risk not to impose it than to impose it.

*I'm not sure if the information is available online because it's resources my brother gave me from books, law journals, etc. But if you're interested in doing some research you can try looking up Deterrent Effect Research Data done by: Paul R. Zimmerman (2004, 2005, 2006), Joanna M. Shepherd (2004, 2005), H. Naci Mocan, R. Kaj Gittings (2003), and Hashem Dezhbakhsh (2003) [all by various titles]. Anyway, these are multiple studies that followed various states and counties using "panel-date" and followed it over an extended period of time. One of the studies found from 3054 counties between 1977-1996 an average of 18 fewer murders per execution. On the state level, data from 1977-1997 showed each execution deterred five murders on average.

[Smalcald]

If we look at places like Texas which does actually use the death penalty, have they seen lower rates of crime for the past 20 years than states which do not have the death penalty? Not from what I have seen, it seems to make no difference.

I have to question where you've received any of the information you've brought forth on this issue. Thus far, nearly everything you've stated has been incorrect. First your statistics regarding races, now your statistics regarding Texas. Here's a graph that might help. It shows you that Texas crime rates declined more rapidly than they declined in the United States overall between 1990 and 1999:

Graph Showing Crime Decline

And as far as being a deterrant, based on the most recent empirical evidence available about the deterrent effect of captial punishment, I'd argue that imposing the death penalty is not only permissable but morally obligatory. The reason I make such a bold statement is because the most recent research indicates that each execution prevents some eighteen murders, on average.* If that is even close to being correct, then refusal to enforce capital punishment effectively condemns a large number of innocent people...which makes it much more of a risk not to impose it than to impose it. Given that foregoing the death penalty of one murderer could thereby be condemning upwards of eighteen innocent people to a violent death, this would make opposing capital punishment much more reprehensible than supporting it.

Even if you reject the numbers (as some will), it doesn't make sense to ignore the fact that research indicates that it does have a deterrant effect. If it saves lives, then imposing the death penalty is no longer morally unacceptable, but becomes morally obligatory.

Secondly, it is already a fact that not not executing criminals is much more of a risk than executing them.

So (to clarify this for myself) it is all right for the government to issue the death penalty because God has set the government in its place?

Yes

And assuming that the death penalty is okay in a Christian viewpoint, should we change our laws on who gets the death penalty, such as when the jury/judge is CERTAIN that the person has committed the crime (such as DNA evidence or photo evidence)?

That already is the law. It's the prosecutor's job to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the person accused is guilty of the crime. They can't just imply that they did it. They have to have proof. Don't let people tell you that there are multiple thousands of innocent people being put to death. That is ridiculous. They're watching WAY too much tv, that is not the truth. Since 1976 (the year the Supreme Court totally revised the death penalty) there have been approximately 944 executions and only 1 proven case of an innocent person being executed. Especially now with DNA technology the liklihood of someone being wrongly convicted is extremely rare. I've posted this many many times, but since you asked I'll post it again. There are multiple "hurdles" a prosecutor must go through in order to bring someone to trial and get a conviction. It is FAR more likely that guilty people go free than it is for an innocent person to be convicted. Here's some of those legal hurdles:

1. The Miranda Doctrine - we've all seen this on tv and in movies. Basically, before a person can even be questioned by police, they have to be warned that he "has the right to remain silent, any statements he makes might be used against him and he has a right to the presence of counsel, retained or appointed." It sounds fair enough. However, just this simple doctrine has allowed countless loopholes that has prevented numerous criminals from paying for their crimes. Convictions are routinely overturned due to technicalities regarding the Miranda. One example would be Escobedo vs. Illinois. Escobedo was a guy who was questioned for the murder of his brother-in-law, but he refused to make any statements. Several days later, another suspect was located who implicated Escobedo. During his second interrogation, Escobedo claimed (of course) that the other supsect was lying. He had an attorney, but he was not in the room. The detective asked him if he'd call the other suspect a liar to his face and Escobedo said yes. When they brought the other man in the room, Escobedo immediately shouted something like "I didn't shoot him, you did it!" ....which implicated himself since he showed firsthand knowledge of the murder. Long story short..even though the police had not used coercion, they hadn't used force, intimidation, etc....Escobedo was able to get his conviction overturned because the moment he incriminated himself his attorney was not in the room. And that is just one example.

2. Police Laws/Search Warrants - this sort of goes along with the Miranda..but a little bit more confusing. Basically, the law requires police to supposedly know and understand thousands of rules and laws and interpret them on the spot...in moments of extreme stress and horror. The law is confusing enough, even to lawyers themselves...yet we expect police officers to arrive on the scene of a horrific crime and ponder the Fourth Ammendment. There was a case in New Hampshire where a man kidnapped a 14 year old girl and held her in his apartment for 4 days. He raped her repeatedly and threatened to kill her and her family if she tried to escape. Acting on a tip, the police arrived at the apartment and the girl came to the door (it was bolted and the kidnapper was gone at the time). The officers broke in. After the girl told them about what he had done, they searched the apartment and found guns and ammunition. The guy went to trial and was found guilty (he also had a long criminal record) but in the court of appeals, his conviction was overturned because the criminal himself had not given permission to search his apartment. The court stated that the police officers should've freed the girl first, then obtained a search warrant for the apartment. How absurd is this?

3. Speedy Trial - this is basically rules that say if a case doesn't go to trial within a certain period of time, it's dismissed or reversed. It was intended to protect ppl from being held for excessive amounts of time before coming to trial. However, as with most other things, it's being abused...and used as a loophole. For instance, a person can be assigned a court date and then subsequently "disappear" while out on bail. If they aren't found within a certain amount of time, they can reappear and their defense attorney can file that their charges be dismissed because they were "denied" their rights to a speedy trial. This is so stupid. The person can FLEE to avoid punishment, and then use this very disobedience to hide behind the law and avoid punishment again. Yes, this is legal.

4. Discovery Statutes - this is one of the things that makes my brother's blood boil. They vary from state to state, but basically they require that the prosecution turn over their files to the defense, but in most cases the defense does not have the same obligation. Thus...the defense attorney essentially bases their entire defense around what the prosecution is going to be bringing forth. They know ahead of time what's coming. Example: the O.J. Simpson trial. Before the trial, OJ had told police he was sleeping inside his house when the murders occured and he hadn't heard the limo driver ring the buzzer. But...once the defense attorney's reveiwed the prosecutor's case, they realized they could no longer use this story. For one, the limo driver reported seeing a man run across the lawn and two, the prosecution had records of cell phone calls made from Simpson's car during the time in question. All the defense had to do, was change their story from sleeping inside the house...to playing golf in the yard. Another danger with this practice is witness intimidation. Heath told me of a case in New York where the member of a large gang was being brought to trial. The prosecution had a crucial witness, but wanted to protect their identity and refused to turn their name over to the defense. But, the judge (acting on the rules of discovery) ordered that they be given to the defense. The prosecutor waited until the day before the trial was to start.....and that night, the witness was murdered.

5. The Priviledge Against Self-Incrimination - this means that a defendant doesn't have to testify. It sounds simple enough, but did you know that if a person refuses to testify the Judge has to tell the jury that they cannot draw any conclusions based on the defendants refusal to testify? Here we have a person on trial...probably the very person who knows the MOST about the incident...and if they refuse to talk, we can't draw any conclusions from that? A person can be charged with brutally murdering someone, yet in many cases they can't even be asked "Did you do it?" while in the presence of the court.

6. The Court of Appeals - bascially, you can have DNA evidence, a "by-the-book" interrogation, a confession and even a conviction...and it can still be overturned in the appellate court on a technicality. The person can be CLEARLY guilty...and yet released because there was a minor error somewhere along the "due process" route.

In all honesty, even executing those who are clearly guilty is hard enough because of the appeals processes. John Wayne Gacy (the serial killer who admitted to killing 33 boys) didn't get executed for like 14 years because his attorney's filed over 500 appeals. And none of those appeals even claimed that he was innocent.

Again, if the numbers in the recent research* are even close to being correct, then refusal to enforce capital punishment effectively condemns a large number of innocent people...which makes it much more of a risk not to impose it than to impose it.

*I'm not sure if the information is available online because it's resources my brother gave me from books, law journals, etc. But if you're interested in doing some research you can try looking up Deterrent Effect Research Data done by: Paul R. Zimmerman (2004, 2005, 2006), Joanna M. Shepherd (2004, 2005), H. Naci Mocan, R. Kaj Gittings (2003), and Hashem Dezhbakhsh (2003) [all by various titles]. Anyway, these are multiple studies that followed various states and counties using "panel-date" and followed it over an extended period of time. One of the studies found from 3054 counties between 1977-1996 an average of 18 fewer murders per execution. On the state level, data from 1977-1997 showed each execution deterred five murders on average.

Sorry you

[apothanein kerdos]

C'mon mate..."SOrry, but in light of all the evidence you gave that disproves what I'm saying, you're still wrong."

Substantiate. You attacked her, "What kind of Christian would support this?!?!" and, of course, offered nothing.

Is there a single Christian out there that actually thinks and offers up reasoning, or have we all become neanderthals pouncing around throwing our dung everywhere because we refuse to actually deal with the issue?

If you can't tell, I'm frustrated.