Comments on: Til Death Do Us Part

By: {{ d a n i m o }}

{{ d a n i m o }} — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:26:01 +0000

"violence begets violence" -- yes, ma'am. i'd like to see that program too; what was it called or what channel was it on?

i'm pretty much word for word in agreement with you on this one. i'm not sure how i feel about the death penalty but even with the "humane" way we euthanize inmates currently, i can see so many problems with it. i mean, first of all, living out (concurrent, consecutive, or any) life sentence has got to be worse than being given a fantasy last meal and knowing the exact date of your death, luxuries your victims presumably didn't have. dying by the hands of other death row inmates who find you vile even in their company seems so much more fair somehow, though i'm not vouching for that either.

a nice introduction to a complicated subject, britni.

By: Britni TheVadgeWig

Britni TheVadgeWig — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:02:17 +0000

Tessier, I can't get on board with the feeling of using the death penalty more than we already do. I don't like the thought of being able to kill people for all kinds of different crimes. it seems inhumane and uncivilized.

By: I'm MIXED bitch.

I'm MIXED bitch. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:16:52 +0000

I am very, very much against the death penalty, and unfortunately live in the state that commits most of these kinds of murders.

Killing is wrong. It doesn't matter how or why it's done, and it doesn't matter who does it.

Sure keeping criminals alive in our prison system eats up tax dollars, but it actually costs LESS to keep someone in prison for life (life expectancy in prison is MUCH LOWER than outside) than the cost of the entire appeals process in our judicial system for a case wherein the prosecutor seeks the death penalty.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty

By: Tessier

Tessier — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:38:49 +0000

Justification for the death penalty versus abortion is guilt versus innocence. Trying to rank them together only works if you truly feel that human life is sacrosanct...which few to no people really do.

Justification for the death penalty itself is pretty straightforward. A dead criminal commits no crimes.

Personally I think the death penalty is much more humane than locking a sentient being away for life. To me, that is a sentence of ongoing torture which seems reprehensible. If it wasn't so expensive, I'd love to see it used a lot more often...and brought into white collar crimes. Bernie Madoff, as an example, has done more damage to more people than any single murder criminal.

By: LL Cool Joe

LL Cool Joe — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:50:33 +0000

I agree with you Britni.

Is that a first???

By: Nolens Volens

Nolens Volens — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:38:22 +0000

I did a research paper on capital punishment many years ago…it doesn't work because 1) the crime/murder rates remained the same when a state used that, 2) the cost of following through vs the cost of sending someone away for 99 years, and 3) the average length for a person waiting on death row – would take a state 10 years straight of executing a person every week to clear the backlog…and that's not even counting the new inmates since then.

I am NOT against it nor am I in favor for it. I just want the judges to grow balls and stop letting the lawyers abuse the legal system to create more backlogs on other cases that aren't murder-related.

By: alana

alana — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:28:42 +0000

People are always surprised I don’t have an opinion about this either way really (considering that, as you know, I have a strong opinion on almost everything else). I do think our penal system needs a major overall and the death penalty should only be used in cases of extreme violent acts against more then three people.

I do know that prison can sometimes be a good thing and not all people become disheartened and/or broken. My mother would have never gotten her GED if it wasn’t for the last time she was in jail. She also got diagnosed with some medical issues that she never would have had the money to go to a doctor for.

By: nenasadije

nenasadije — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:08:32 +0000

J,
in some cases confining a person to death row is more expensive than confining a person to the general population of a maximum security prison. and overall, the costs associated with death penalty trials are significantly higher (investigation, pre-trial, trial, and post-trial actions).

By: J

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:12:05 +0000

mkp, Interesting. Why does it cost more? All of the legal maneuvering? I wouldn't think that that actual act would cost any more than a year of imprisonment.

Just being devil's advocate here (these are not my feelings), pro-lifers that are pro-death penalty (not all are) feel abortion is killing an innocent life and but the death penalty is killing a person that can't be "fixed."

By: mkp-hearts-nyc

mkp-hearts-nyc — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:38:07 +0000

I wrote a paper on this in college – it actually costs more to execute someone than to keep them in prison for life! I'm wholeheartedly against the death penalty, not just because of the simplistic "why do we kill people to teach them that killing is wrong." The system is so broken at this point – a disproportionate number of those executed are people of color, and DNA evidence being relatively recent as it is, there's not a lot of justice in how the death penalty is administered.