I don't believe in the death penalty...Maryland just ended it in their state. I posted this on FB. Now TBM is going off on me.

I said that I like,"Thou shalt not kill" and I'm sticking to that. She says the correct translation is, "Thou shalt not murder" and the penalty for that is...killing? I guess this is LDS policy? Any pithy ways I can tell her off and score one for NOT killing people? (yes, I know that some people may deserve to die...but I think life w/out parole is preferable to more violence).

I am against the death penalty for several reasons. 1. Innocent people have been put to death. There is no way to make that right. There have been people on death row who were exonerated by DNA. 2. The death penalty is not applied fairly and as long as judges are fallible human beings it can't be. Besides there are so many factors that go into making people what they are, that it is impossible to really know what forces shape the murderer. Does he have a normal brain, was he abused.what traits was he born with? 3. It has not been shown to be a deterrent.4. It costs more than life imprisonment.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2013 11:47PM by bona dea.

I honestly don't know what LDS policy is. I know growing up I was taught to be in favor of the death penalty. Which, if convictions were always correct I don't know that I would have a problem with.

However, convictions are often wrong, about 30% of the time, according to NPR. There is no way I can support the death penalty when there is a 30% minimum chance the conviction is wrong.

Someone who does horrible things to children or other innocent victims being given the death penalty, I don't have such a problem with. If there is even the slightest chance they are blaming the wrong person, well, I have a problem with that.

Hence, no death penalty. Better an guilty person spend their life in prison than an innocent life be lost. So, yes, I am against the death penalty in general simply because so many innocent people are wrongly convicted.

I'm sort of in the middle on this one. The Innocence Project has exonerated a few people on death row. Killing somebody isn't something you can take back.

That said, there are some inmates that continue to pose a threat to society. Take the last guy to get executed in Utah by firing squad, for example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronnie_Lee_Gardner
On appeal for his first conviction, he killed another guy while trying to escape the courthouse. He nearly killed another inmate while in the pen, and made numerous escape attempts. People like that -- who continue to pose a threat -- I can sleep easy putting them down.

My preference would be a significantly higher standard of proof for death penalty cases. Strong forensics and unimpeachable eyewitness testimony. A lot of those exonerated were wrong-time, wrong-place sort of affairs, where confessions were coerced or character testimony was used extensively in place of meaningful forensics.

The death penalty is in action everyday; innocent, good people are killed by evil people. Anyone who commits murder should be executed. You know, let it be done to the killer as the killer did to another.

I don't believe in the death penalty either really. The first time I heard that Utah uses a firing squad to kill their prisoners was a wakeup call for me. I'm sorry, I just don't think that's right. I think they have a choice now about how to die but still. I would think that living in prison until you rotted would be a pretty just sentence. I know the arguments about that costing taxpayers such and such dollars. But if someone murdered my family member, I would be much happier if they died in prison absolutely miserable instead of being killed instantly with an audience watching. I guess I can't say until I've "been" there. But right here right now I think the death penalty is a move backwards instead of forwards.

Does anyone remember the case of Paul Ezra Rhoades in Idaho? Please reply if you do.

If you want something snotty:

Oh that's right, your scriptures say it's fine for teenagers to decapitate someone if they hear voices in their head as long as you have a really really good reason to steal something from them.

FYI - the BoM is strongly pro death penalty - in Alma.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 12:03AM by The Oncoming Storm - bc.

Hate to say it, but your TBM friend is quite right.

The bible not only allows for killing, it mandates it, repeatedly.
Murder, genocide, and the like are commandments so long as god is calling the hit.

Here's a suggestion. Never use the bible to support your position on anything... ever.
It's one of the worst books we have on nearly every subject... Unless the subject is dangerous, worthless, silly, tenacious bull shit.

I changed my mind on this after 40 years of believing in it. It was about the same time I abandoned religion. Taking the life of another can't be anyone's ethical right. Lock them up and throw away the key, but to take a life is the ultimate evil.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Revenge and an eye for eye and tooth for a tooth is the way of the middle east barbarians who can't seem to stop fighting because of this mentality. IMO let GOD deal with them in the next life. We just need to lock em up for good so they can't hurt anyone else.

Not just with the pope news with the attendant instititional child rape/molestation protection - can we please call it what it is, instead of the nicer sounding pedophilia?

I was just looking last night online for any further news about my parents' doctor for 46 years and erstwhile neighbor, Mark Shaffer, from Aurora, Ohio, who was arrested last November after the postal inspectors discovered he was being mailed child pornography to his house. He confessed right away, and his wife has apparently been complicit somehow in looking the other way, making excuses, whatever, according to her weird, rambling letter to dad's church members (she took the 5th, at her lawyer's behest). Reading it made me shake, and I kept thinking about their 4 kids, who we played with... the grandson who he apparently also raped, the "but I'm doctor, so its okay" excuse I just read about from a former patient's blog when he mentioned something about his daughter's accusation of molestation of her son 6 years ago during an exam (WTF!!??) (now expatient feels guilty for saying nothing at the time) Amazing what you can find online.

The depth of my horror and disgust is so deep, and he deserves more than a quick death. He should rot in prison until he dies.

Life in prison isn't as humane as people make it out to be, because we outsource the torture and violence to the other inmates.

I find it strange that people will protest the death penalty, but turn a blind eye to the "Lord of the Flies" scenarios that we seem willing to allow.

We ought to use the minimum amount of force to safeguard the general population from crime. We do what is necessary, but no more. All modern societies have the means to stop a criminal from causing harm in society by milder means than killing him or her, and so there is no justification left for the death penalty.

The idea of humans meting out justice is dangerous. Whether or not free will actually exists, numerous other causes and conditions contribute to making someone commit a crime. It is impossible for humans to know how culpable someone is for this reason. What if the person had had a different upbringing? Different genetic makeup? Different parents? Different financial and social staus? Different health? Lower or higher IQ? The list goes on and on. And how would we act under different circumstances? Only God knows (should she exist).

So the purpose of the court system should not be to give someone what they "deserve". We cannot know what somebody deserves. Rather it should do what is needed to maintain a civilized society. And so we must deter people from commiting acts that are harmful to others, and we must protect people from those who commit harmful acts. Also the sentence must be severe enough that we avoid lynchmobs from people seeking "justice" (revenge).

If the person who supports the death penalty believes in some form of christianity, then one might also add that the death penalty is the least christian way of treating criminals. It is final in a way that no other penalty is. It contains absolutely no redemptive quality, no possibility of rehabilitation, and sometimes fallible humans courts make mistakes.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 07:32PM by seaweed.