The Death Sentence.

Thats's why they need to change the justice system, so that does not happen

Although there have been documented cases of killers doing a 180 and becoing good people. They say with things like AntiSocial Personality disorder that it can vanish without a trace in your middle ages, and that's what a lot of these people have.

Yeah, I agree with making life sentances FOR life.
What disgusts me about England though is how some prisons aren't like a prison at all.
One has personal tv's and a gym!

Anyway, back on topic.
I myself don't agree with the death penalty.
Some crimes are just vile.
And they do deserve death.
But I don't agree with it.

Okkay, that makes NO sense.

I think rotting in a prison cell, with only your mind and four walls, is a far better punishments.
I also think prisons should go back to being how they were before.
Like in the Shawshank Redemption.
Far better way for prisons to be.

for some people, room and board for the rest of their lives isn't a punishment.
if they'd hit the point of a life sentence, they probably don't have a family they'll actually miss, or anything to leave behind.
i mean, not having to actually DO anything for the rest of your life isn't that bad of a punishment.


if you need somthing so bad, you would kill for it, you would die for it also, IMO. if they get to the death sentence, they put themselves there.
too bad.
so sad.

Fezzik:

^The exact same thing can be said for being sentenced to death. Death isn't that bad a punishment to everyone, either.

Thats true.

kinda random:
There is this Indian culture where people would rather die then be shunned, shunning was the ultimate punishment, so sentencing someone to death would be like giving them mercy.

Which its the same here. Why let someone who's done horrible things to others get off easy? they shouldn't.

Fezzik:

^The exact same thing can be said for being sentenced to death. Death isn't that bad a punishment to everyone, either.

oh yes, i understand that.
but hey, they won't be sucking up my taxes that way.
better for everyone.
-edit-
but i also understand your point on proving innocence.
i'll just apply my point of view to people who openly confess.

Then why shouldn't the person who kills the inmates also be killed? Afterall, in the murders eyes, they were acting on the grounds of JUSTICE, just like the person who is putting them to death believes they are acting on justice. You cannot justify the killing of a person because justice is in the eye of the beholder.

Now the prisons with tellies and gyms are typically for people like drug dealers..people who have committed less serious offences. Every high security prison I have ever seen is very frightning and lonely. I feel bad for the people in them regardless of what they did. Prisons for serious offenders are terrible places: trust me..no one's getting a break for what they have done.

Mark David Chapman:

oh yes, i understand that.
but hey, they won't be sucking up my taxes that way.
better for everyone.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've somehow gotten the kind of idea that it's actually more expensive to hold criminals on death row than the "normal" prison. And as it normally takes years and years before the execution takes place, the costs of an inmate sentenced to death rise way bigger than the average inmates'.

Your correct. either way, money is going down the drain, why not use it to support life rather then murder? It's cheeper, and better on the human soul.

BAD news

rom The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
15 August 2007 08:18 Home > News > World > Americas
Bush's lethal legacy: more executions
The US already kills more of its prisoners than almost any other country. Now the White House plans to cut the right of appeal of death row inmates...
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Published: 15 August 2007
The Bush administration is preparing to speed up the executions of criminals who are on death row across the United States, in effect, cutting out several layers of appeals in the federal courts so that prisoners can be "fast-tracked" to their deaths.

With less than 18 months to go to secure a presidential legacy, President Bush has turned to an issue he has specialised in since approving a record number of executions while Governor of Texas.

The US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales - Mr Bush's top legal adviser during the spree of executions in Texas in the 1990s - is putting finishing touches to regulations, inspired by recent anti-terrorism legislation, that would allow states to turn to the Justice Department, instead of the federal courts, as a key arbiter in deciding whether prisoners live or die.

The US is already among the top six countries worldwide in terms of the numbers of its own citizens that it puts to death. Fifty-two Americans were executed last year and thousands await their fate on death row.

In some instances, prisoners would have significantly less time to file federal appeals, and the appeals courts significantly less time to respond. On the question of whether defendants received adequate representation at trial - a key issue in many cases, especially in southern states with no formal public defender system - the Attorney General would be the sole decision-maker.

Since Mr Gonzales is a prosecutor, not a judge, and since he has a track record of favouring death in almost every capital case brought before him, the regulations would, in effect, remove a crucial safety net for prisoners who feel they have been wrongly convicted.

Elisabeth Semel, a death penalty specialist at the University of California law school in Berkeley, said the intention of the proposed regulation was clear: "To make it more difficult for people who have been sentenced to death in state courts, including those sentenced without adequate representation and resources, to avoid being executed."

The regulations, first made public by the Los Angeles Times, will be subject to a public comment period extending into September. They will then be enacted "as quickly as circumstances allow", according to a Justice Department spokeswoman.

The administration's enthusiasm for capital punishment runs counter to the recent trend away from the death penalty in many states. Last year saw the lowest number of capital convictions across the country - 114 - since the death penalty was reintroduced in the early 1970s. The development of DNA testing has raised uncomfortable questions about the safety of many capital convictions, prompting Illinois to call a halt to all its executions and triggering reviews in many other states.

Over the past two years, doubts have also arisen over the most popular method of execution - death by lethal injection - because medical research has suggested prisoners may die in agony. One of the cocktails of drugs typically administered, pancuronium bromide, paralyses the body, masking any pain without necessarily alleviating it.

California and half a dozen other states imposed moratoriums pending a study of a new cocktail of drugs that would overcome the constitutional ban on "cruel or unusual" punishment. Some states, including Tennessee, South Dakota and Florida, have either resumed executions or are planning to do so. But California, which has 600 prisoners on death row, shows no signs of executing anybody in the near future.

President Bush has always been a death penalty enthusiast. The 152 prisoners he dispatched to their deaths in his eight years as governor of Texas set a high-water mark unmatched before or since.

According to official memos, Governor Bush would give the green light to executions based on no more than a half-hour briefing from Mr Gonzales. Mr Gonzales, in turn, often omitted mitigating evidence.

At no time has Mr Bush seen any contradiction with his avowed commitment to the sanctity of life. As President he has even instituted a National Sanctity of Human Life Day, which, he has said, "serves as a reminder we must value human life in all its forms, not just those considered healthy, wanted, or convenient".

If the regulations come into effect, they would raise serious questions about the ability of wrongfully convicted prisoners to overturn sentences. Kenny Richey, a Scot who has been on Ohio's death row for close to 20 years, is still alive - and, it appears, on the verge of having his sentence quashed - because of the intervention of a federal appeals court on his behalf.

Four years ago, a Missouri man, Joe Amrine, was released after 17 years on death row after the collapse of all evidence that led to his conviction for a jail murder. The state argued, with a straight face, that even the establishment of innocence was not a reason to stop his execution, because nothing had been procedurally incorrect about his original trial. Again, it was a federal appeals court that weighed in on Amrine's behalf.

To date, 123 prisoners sentenced to die have been proved innocent and released. Anti-death penalty activists and lawyers have raised serious doubts about hundreds of others.

LoversHeartDisease:

Over the past two years, doubts have also arisen over the most popular method of execution - death by lethal injection - because medical research has suggested prisoners may die in agony. One of the cocktails of drugs typically administered, pancuronium bromide, paralyses the body, masking any pain without necessarily alleviating it.

Yeah. Nobody has a slightest clue of what kind of torture the drug coctail might put the prisoners through. You might think that it's an easier or less painful way to go than electrocution (dunno if that's the right word) or, god forbid, the gas chamber. It could be, but then it might as well be thousand times worse.

LoversHeartDisease:

But California, which has 600 prisoners on death row, shows no signs of executing anybody in the near future.

THIS IS WHAT I DON'T UNDERSTAND! Why do you have to sentence people to death if there is no certainty that you might actually get executed at all. I can only imagine the agony of the inmates on death row with no kind of certainty of their future. Or should I say the length of their future. If you have to use the death sentence, there should be some sort of regulations of how long a person can be held on death row before the sentence must be carried out.

LoversHeartDisease:

As President he has even instituted a National Sanctity of Human Life Day, which, he has said, "serves as a reminder we must value human life in all its forms, not just those considered healthy, wanted, or convenient".

I'm not sure if I want to comment on this one.

This troubles me. Badly.

i guess i'm just not a forgiving person.
good thing i don't make the rules.

LoversHeartDisease:

Then why shouldn't the person who kills the inmates also be killed? Afterall, in the murders eyes, they were acting on the grounds of JUSTICE, just like the person who is putting them to death believes they are acting on justice. You cannot justify the killing of a person because justice is in the eye of the beholder.

Now the prisons with tellies and gyms are typically for people like drug dealers..people who have committed less serious offences. Every high security prison I have ever seen is very frightning and lonely. I feel bad for the people in them regardless of what they did. Prisons for serious offenders are terrible places: trust me..no one's getting a break for what they have done.

And thats the way it should be. They do the crime, they should pay for it. Thats the end of the story for me.

I think the death penalty should be brought back for murderers, rapists, etc but only if DNA testing and stuff gets more reliable as sometimes people make mistakes with that. I also think life should mean life not just 50 or 40 years. Oh, and prisons shouldn't have TV's and stuff in them, it's not a hotel.

Once again, Tellies and whatnot are most often used in prisons with petty criminals, and I think it's a good idea. Jail goes things to the mind. Iv had friends go in for small offences and have come back messed up due to the long hours without human contact. At least TV helps them get thought the day and keeps their minds a bit sharper..

uh they are 100 percent sure that their gulty and if one little thing that helps their case is found. the sentance is suspended

Disarm; Nicole:

I totally agree with that statement, but sadly, we can't. Someone has to pay for the facilities to house these people, the clothes they wear, and the food they eat. If you pay taxes congratulations, that's you.

It costs more tax payer money to execute a person (in all forms of it) than it does to keep them in prison for life. There is no real solution to people who break teh law in a serious way, but killing them doesnt solve the problem any better, it also gives people the impression that an eye for eye is liable. Not only that, what if someone is wrongly accused of something and given the death penalty? This happens A LOT and if we are to say that it was only such and such amount, we're not looking at the big picture; someone lsot their life, their family, and their reputation. These criminals are still people. People make mistakes.

I'm against it because they should live their lives regretting about things they've done.
Killing is always wrong.