Please keep in mind that I am asking about California... I am open to all opinions and don't mind if you
provide extensive research as support for your choice.
I, personally, am neutral on the issue... And, you don't necessarily need to
live in California, just as long as your reply will relate to the Should The Death Penalty In California Be
Abolished? subject...
Thanks.
I can't say much other than opinion, but I would like to state that keeping
prisoners is expensive for taxpayers at $35,000 a year. Paying for the prisoners
on deathrow to live in prison would be too much to pay if you want to look at a
strictly financial view. On the note of justice and punishment, I do believe
that there are a lot of cases in which the prisoners should be executed. When
people kill others and things like that I believe that the death penalty is
called for. I can't speak for others, but I believe I speak for some when I say
the death penalty should not be ablolished in California, or any state, but the
public opinion now is that we shouldn't kill, that the memory of killing or
betraying our country to terrorists will hurt the criminal and make him regret
for the rest of their life, and though there are some cases that that is true, I
believe that to be untrue in most cases. So while the criminal is safely in
jail, the people he caused to be hurt are suffering because of what he or she
did. I believe that justice calls for the death penalty, if nothing else for the
people the criminal hurt doing what he or she did. I will not apologize for what
I have said, because I said the truth which I believe and will not, under any
circumstance change it.
Your question pretty much applies to any place in the world, rather than just
California. I'm not providing any solid facts here, rather than that I'm just
providing my personal opinion.
Prisons these days have been turned into safe havens for criminals, providing
them with everything they need: food, water, medical facilities, education - to
name a few things, and it costs the taxpayer a massive amount of money. And at
some point down the line they get released back into public life, more or less
happy to go back to what they were doing because they haven't really been
punished ... and this applies especially to murderers and rapists.
The death penalty at the very least acts as a deterrent, and if it doesn't, it
removes an unwanted person from society - permanently. Same as atahrvin17 above,
despite the fact that my opinion may offend some people I will stand by
it.
My last point - I live in a country where the death penalty has been abolished,
and in the years since, crime has spiralled out of control, despite what our
government might like to claim.
It's not like the death penalty is something thrown about, given as a punishment
for anyone who commits a crime. There are even murderers who are not condemned
to death. It's simply a punishment that the jury decides on for the worst
criminals. If the jury decides that you deserve the death penalty, then they
should have the ability to use it.
No.
If with the death penalty, murders and hediond crimes keep happening, can you
guys think what will hapen if criminals be sure that they won't be punished with
death?
From a purely philosophical point of view, I believe the death penalty should be
abolished..just because criminals kill other civilians, that doesn't mean the
government should. However, I very much recognize that it costs money to keep
prisoners in jail, so I know that it would be a difficult problem to solve.
well... I lived a country that not only exercises death penalty, but also
canning too...
and those two also act pretty much as a deterent
Quote by BobaFett2ha ..just because
criminals kill other civilians, that doesn't mean the government should.
and if we look at it from another way... if you lived in a country where death
penalty is exercised and you know you will get sentenced to death for the act of
murder, but yet you still choose to commit an act of murder, what makes you
think that you do not deserve the death penalty?
in the first place you know murder is punishable by death, but yet, you choose
to commit the crime, arn't you asking for it?
you see the death penalty as an action of the government killing the criminals,
I see it more of an action that is brought upon by the criminals' own
action.
call me inhuman or heartless if you want, but thats the way i look at things
well lets just say i criminal kills innocent people, so the government decides
to kill the criminal.....then i guess the government should be charged for
murder too right?...no matter what the crime, you can't kill them because that
would be the same as murder, so instead you just try to stop them, thats what
prison and jail is for, and if they escape then that is just the governments
fault for failing to stop them isn't it?
Quote by o0Beginner0owell lets just
say i criminal kills innocent people, so the government decides to kill the
criminal.....then i guess the government should be charged for murder too
right?...no matter what the crime, you can't kill them because that would be the
same as murder, so instead you just try to stop them, thats what prison and jail
is for, and if they escape then that is just the governments fault for failing
to stop them isn't it?
You're absolutely right. The government would have to be charged too with
murder, because otherwise...that's just messed up. There shouldn't be a death
penalty. What if someone really didn't mean to commit a crime and no one
believes them? Or what if they don't tell the truth and go ahead with being
guilty? The government would be killing the wrong person.
Its naive to think your country hasn't murdered poeple in its self interest. If
Governments are held to account over killings only other governments can hold
them to account.
The death penalty in any society is wrong, simply because its like asserting
that we are just enough to exact death upon our fellow man. Supporting a
government kills for you to keep you safe basically means you feel alright with
killing criminals yourself.
Apart from being wrong principally, there is a rate of error that sees innocent
citizens executed in the system. But then alot of Californians would just say
"kill them all and let god sort them out", which is just retarded.
Why change something that has been working fine for our entire history? If it
isn't broken, don't fix it. There should be penalties for breaking the law; the
worse the crime, the worse the punishment should be. Nothing made and regulated
by man is perfect, we must take the good with the bad, hand in hand. In my
opinion, justice should be served upon the guilty.
Quote by ShasoArcWhy change something
that has been working fine for our entire history? If it isn't broken, don't fix
it. There should be penalties for breaking the law; the worse the crime, the
worse the punishment should be. Nothing made and regulated by man is perfect, we
must take the good with the bad, hand in hand. In my opinion, justice should be
served upon the guilty.
So when you mean "we must take the good with the bad", you mean we
should execute the innocent on death row aswell as the guilty in the name of
justice?
Poeple are incapable of exacting true justice on one another, you could say an
eye for an eye is close enough but their are poeple that have destroyed mutiple
lives, how do we kill them more than once?
Quote by ShasoArcWhy change something
that has been working fine for our entire history? If it isn't broken, don't fix
it. There should be penalties for breaking the law; the worse the crime, the
worse the punishment should be. Nothing made and regulated by man is perfect, we
must take the good with the bad, hand in hand. In my opinion, justice should be
served upon the guilty.
So when you mean "we must take the good with the bad", you mean we
should execute the innocent on death row aswell as the guilty in the name of
justice?
Poeple are incapable of exacting true justice on one another, you could say an
eye for an eye is close enough but their are poeple that have destroyed mutiple
lives, how do we kill them more than once?
I never said that innocents should be
punished on death row; however, I do believe that the death penalty is
necessary. After all, we don't purposefully execute the innocent in the name of
justice.
"Executing a murderer is the only way to adequately express our horror at
the taking of an innocent life. Nothing else suffices. To equate the lives of
killers with those of victims is the worst kind of moral equivalency. If capital
punishment is state murder, then imprisonment is state kidnapping and
restitution is state theft." Don Feder
"If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated.
This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate
as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal
law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the
legal order." Szasz, Thomas
Quote by primetigerLife in prison is
much harsher then the death penalty.
well... that probably wouldn't apply to the criminals.. i mean.. if life in
prison is much harsher then the death penalty, why didn't we hear or see
criminals sentenced to a jail term or life imprisonment appealing for the death
penalty? while all that i have heard about is criminals sentenced to death
appealing to avoid the death penalty.. and people being paid to take the rap for
others?
abolishing the death penalty so that in the case of an innocent being wrongly
convicted of a crime punishable by death penalty, the innocent would not lose
his/her innocent life sounds like a very good idea...
BUT, what are the chances of having an innocent life lost by death penalty, and
what are the chances of innocent lives being lost in cases of crimes like
murder?
abolishing the death penalty would only make the criminals bolder, and like one
of the above poster had mentioned, crime would spiral out of control and more
innocent lives would be lost.
and not everyone thinks that a criminal murdering someone is not a reason good
enough for the government to kill the murders, there are people out there who
are very supportive of the death penalty, there are people who believes people
who killed animals deserve the death penalty, there are people who believes the
death penalties are too easy on the criminals and the criminals should die by
having their intestines pulled out. And these bunch of people are very likely to
take the law into their own hands, that means, if the government wouldn't
excecute murderers, they would.
and the chances of innocent lives being sentenced to death by these bunch of
people is much higher than the chances of innocent lives being wrongly sentenced
to death under the court of law. afterall, these bunch of people arn't
professionals like the police.
to sum it up, while abolishing the death penalty may seem to prevent the lost of
innocent lives, truth is, only more innocent lives would be lost, due to
criminals becoming bolder, and also due to the people who would take the law
into their own hands.
and to ChinoMareno, the government don't really need to use the law to kill
people for its own interest, there is something called a Death squad. using the
law would capture the Public's attention, death squads on the other hand, are
capable of being discreet. the target could, go missing without a trace, ran
away with the citizens' money, killed in a car accident, died of illness, suffer
a stroke etc...
Thank you very much for all the people who have given me their opinions.
This was done because I had a project for a class I had last semester about the
death penalty.
Your answers have helped me a lot and, again, I thank you.
Anyway, I don't think other humans should determine who lives or dies; as a
religious person, I believe that the choice belongs to God. However, not
everyone is religious so...
Did you know it costs $100,000 more for
the trials/care/execution fees for every Death Row inmate? That's not counting
the $3.25 million of unused tax money that goes to Capital Punishment.
Also, with the innocent people thing, sometimes people are misjudged. I met a
man, Kurt Bloodswurth, that was convicted of rape and murder of a young girl,
but he was innocent: it was proven by DNA testing: the first in US history to be
proven innocent by DNA testing. What if there are more cases like that? We don't
want people to die innocently.
Anyway, that's just for the state of NJ. (No, I was totally not part of the New
Jerseyans against the Death Penalty group)
Anyways, I know your project is over, but I just thought I give my two
cents.
merged: 05-15-2007 ~ 09:17am
Oh, and I did check the prices of maintaining Capital punishment for other
states, and California also spends a lot of unneeded money...
i dount belive in capital punishment
its not going to make things right its not going to bring the person back it is
just murder plane and simple. its kindof like sending a person to prison for
rape,and then the person gets raped in prison
its wrong
i live in california currently and support the death penalty and actually think
it should be harsher and quicker, right now it takes way to long to execute a
death row inmate.
the death penalty in california shoudl be thoroughly looked into in each and
every case. California, like the other states, have some crimes that one could
simply say "man kill the dude for it" or something... you know if the
death penalty was abolished in california, there goes our taxes, and trust me...
I don't think I wanna work at my job but really only paying to support the
"jails" for guys that didn't get the death penalty because it was
abolished.
Quote by heruba2i live in california
currently and support the death penalty and actually think it should be harsher
and quicker, right now it takes way to long to execute a death row
inmate.
I have to agree with this. Even at a young age I look at some cases and seen it
take months, even years to execute a death row inmate.
I might be a more radical person on this but I think they should just execute
them a few hours after the sentencing. A few hours or maybe a day seem to me
more than enough time to get things ready.
I would like to state since there are poeple saying it should be life in prison
instead of execution. I agree that this would be a harsher punishment than the
death penalty, but with how many people murder, it simply isn't financially
feasable. if we kept all murderers in prison for the rest of their lives, our
economy would collapse. Then there are the criminals who murder and aren't
sentenced to life,. Thhey get out and are free to kill again. They always say
that the murderers or such are "rehabilitated". I myself don't believe
this to be true in at least half the cases. Then there are the ones who are
released on good behavior, with something like life on parole. There are of
course ones who really are fit to live in society and are truely repentant, but
i also believe most of these are just intelligent criminals who know what they
did was wrong but intend to do it again. There are many cases of murderers who
kill, get out of prison and kill again. With the death penalty in place, they
fear to be caught and are at the very least less likely to do these crimes. In
California, the crime rate is much higher than in most other states, so believe
they at least should keep it. And i also agree with Vinitachi. The criminals
sentenced to death should be executed soon after sentencing. It is simply a
waste of tax-payers money to keep them alive for months and years before they
are executed. And I'd like to finish by adding these are personal opinions and
some may not believe in them, but I refuse to retract them.
Please keep in mind that I am asking about California... I am open to all opinions and don't mind if you provide extensive research as support for your choice.
I, personally, am neutral on the issue... And, you don't necessarily need to live in California, just as long as your reply will relate to the Should The Death Penalty In California Be Abolished? subject...
Thanks.
I can't say much other than opinion, but I would like to state that keeping prisoners is expensive for taxpayers at $35,000 a year. Paying for the prisoners on deathrow to live in prison would be too much to pay if you want to look at a strictly financial view. On the note of justice and punishment, I do believe that there are a lot of cases in which the prisoners should be executed. When people kill others and things like that I believe that the death penalty is called for. I can't speak for others, but I believe I speak for some when I say the death penalty should not be ablolished in California, or any state, but the public opinion now is that we shouldn't kill, that the memory of killing or betraying our country to terrorists will hurt the criminal and make him regret for the rest of their life, and though there are some cases that that is true, I believe that to be untrue in most cases. So while the criminal is safely in jail, the people he caused to be hurt are suffering because of what he or she did. I believe that justice calls for the death penalty, if nothing else for the people the criminal hurt doing what he or she did. I will not apologize for what I have said, because I said the truth which I believe and will not, under any circumstance change it.
Your question pretty much applies to any place in the world, rather than just California. I'm not providing any solid facts here, rather than that I'm just providing my personal opinion.
Prisons these days have been turned into safe havens for criminals, providing them with everything they need: food, water, medical facilities, education - to name a few things, and it costs the taxpayer a massive amount of money. And at some point down the line they get released back into public life, more or less happy to go back to what they were doing because they haven't really been punished ... and this applies especially to murderers and rapists.
The death penalty at the very least acts as a deterrent, and if it doesn't, it removes an unwanted person from society - permanently. Same as atahrvin17 above, despite the fact that my opinion may offend some people I will stand by it.
My last point - I live in a country where the death penalty has been abolished, and in the years since, crime has spiralled out of control, despite what our government might like to claim.
It's not like the death penalty is something thrown about, given as a punishment for anyone who commits a crime. There are even murderers who are not condemned to death. It's simply a punishment that the jury decides on for the worst criminals. If the jury decides that you deserve the death penalty, then they should have the ability to use it.
No.
If with the death penalty, murders and hediond crimes keep happening, can you guys think what will hapen if criminals be sure that they won't be punished with death?
Just a opinion. :/
From a purely philosophical point of view, I believe the death penalty should be abolished..just because criminals kill other civilians, that doesn't mean the government should. However, I very much recognize that it costs money to keep prisoners in jail, so I know that it would be a difficult problem to solve.
my views are pretty much the same as shadowfoxza
well... I lived a country that not only exercises death penalty, but also canning too...
and those two also act pretty much as a deterent
and if we look at it from another way... if you lived in a country where death penalty is exercised and you know you will get sentenced to death for the act of murder, but yet you still choose to commit an act of murder, what makes you think that you do not deserve the death penalty?
in the first place you know murder is punishable by death, but yet, you choose to commit the crime, arn't you asking for it?
you see the death penalty as an action of the government killing the criminals, I see it more of an action that is brought upon by the criminals' own action.
call me inhuman or heartless if you want, but thats the way i look at things
Death penalty is a good way to punish bad people.
well lets just say i criminal kills innocent people, so the government decides to kill the criminal.....then i guess the government should be charged for murder too right?...no matter what the crime, you can't kill them because that would be the same as murder, so instead you just try to stop them, thats what prison and jail is for, and if they escape then that is just the governments fault for failing to stop them isn't it?
........ there shouldn't be death penalty anywhere in the world
How are they suppose to repent and pay for their sins when they're dead?
You're absolutely right. The government would have to be charged too with murder, because otherwise...that's just messed up. There shouldn't be a death penalty. What if someone really didn't mean to commit a crime and no one believes them? Or what if they don't tell the truth and go ahead with being guilty? The government would be killing the wrong person.
Its naive to think your country hasn't murdered poeple in its self interest. If Governments are held to account over killings only other governments can hold them to account.
The death penalty in any society is wrong, simply because its like asserting that we are just enough to exact death upon our fellow man. Supporting a government kills for you to keep you safe basically means you feel alright with killing criminals yourself.
Apart from being wrong principally, there is a rate of error that sees innocent citizens executed in the system. But then alot of Californians would just say "kill them all and let god sort them out", which is just retarded.
Why change something that has been working fine for our entire history? If it isn't broken, don't fix it. There should be penalties for breaking the law; the worse the crime, the worse the punishment should be. Nothing made and regulated by man is perfect, we must take the good with the bad, hand in hand. In my opinion, justice should be served upon the guilty.
So when you mean "we must take the good with the bad", you mean we should execute the innocent on death row aswell as the guilty in the name of justice?
Poeple are incapable of exacting true justice on one another, you could say an eye for an eye is close enough but their are poeple that have destroyed mutiple lives, how do we kill them more than once?
I never said that innocents should be punished on death row; however, I do believe that the death penalty is necessary. After all, we don't purposefully execute the innocent in the name of justice.
"Executing a murderer is the only way to adequately express our horror at the taking of an innocent life. Nothing else suffices. To equate the lives of killers with those of victims is the worst kind of moral equivalency. If capital punishment is state murder, then imprisonment is state kidnapping and restitution is state theft." Don Feder
"If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order." Szasz, Thomas
Cheers
Life in prison is much harsher then the death penalty.
well... that probably wouldn't apply to the criminals.. i mean.. if life in prison is much harsher then the death penalty, why didn't we hear or see criminals sentenced to a jail term or life imprisonment appealing for the death penalty? while all that i have heard about is criminals sentenced to death appealing to avoid the death penalty.. and people being paid to take the rap for others?
abolishing the death penalty so that in the case of an innocent being wrongly convicted of a crime punishable by death penalty, the innocent would not lose his/her innocent life sounds like a very good idea...
BUT, what are the chances of having an innocent life lost by death penalty, and what are the chances of innocent lives being lost in cases of crimes like murder?
abolishing the death penalty would only make the criminals bolder, and like one of the above poster had mentioned, crime would spiral out of control and more innocent lives would be lost.
and not everyone thinks that a criminal murdering someone is not a reason good enough for the government to kill the murders, there are people out there who are very supportive of the death penalty, there are people who believes people who killed animals deserve the death penalty, there are people who believes the death penalties are too easy on the criminals and the criminals should die by having their intestines pulled out. And these bunch of people are very likely to take the law into their own hands, that means, if the government wouldn't excecute murderers, they would.
and the chances of innocent lives being sentenced to death by these bunch of people is much higher than the chances of innocent lives being wrongly sentenced to death under the court of law. afterall, these bunch of people arn't professionals like the police.
to sum it up, while abolishing the death penalty may seem to prevent the lost of innocent lives, truth is, only more innocent lives would be lost, due to criminals becoming bolder, and also due to the people who would take the law into their own hands.
and to ChinoMareno, the government don't really need to use the law to kill people for its own interest, there is something called a Death squad. using the law would capture the Public's attention, death squads on the other hand, are capable of being discreet. the target could, go missing without a trace, ran away with the citizens' money, killed in a car accident, died of illness, suffer a stroke etc...
Cheers
Thank you very much for all the people who have given me their opinions.
This was done because I had a project for a class I had last semester about the death penalty.
Your answers have helped me a lot and, again, I thank you.
NJ just abolished Death Penalty this week!
Anyway, I don't think other humans should determine who lives or dies; as a religious person, I believe that the choice belongs to God. However, not everyone is religious so...
Did you know it costs $100,000 more for the trials/care/execution fees for every Death Row inmate? That's not counting the $3.25 million of unused tax money that goes to Capital Punishment.
Also, with the innocent people thing, sometimes people are misjudged. I met a man, Kurt Bloodswurth, that was convicted of rape and murder of a young girl, but he was innocent: it was proven by DNA testing: the first in US history to be proven innocent by DNA testing. What if there are more cases like that? We don't want people to die innocently.
Anyway, that's just for the state of NJ. (No, I was totally not part of the New Jerseyans against the Death Penalty group)
Anyways, I know your project is over, but I just thought I give my two cents.
merged: 05-15-2007 ~ 09:17am
Oh, and I did check the prices of maintaining Capital punishment for other states, and California also spends a lot of unneeded money...
i dount belive in capital punishment
its not going to make things right its not going to bring the person back it is just murder plane and simple. its kindof like sending a person to prison for rape,and then the person gets raped in prison
its wrong
i live in california currently and support the death penalty and actually think it should be harsher and quicker, right now it takes way to long to execute a death row inmate.
the death penalty in california shoudl be thoroughly looked into in each and every case. California, like the other states, have some crimes that one could simply say "man kill the dude for it" or something... you know if the death penalty was abolished in california, there goes our taxes, and trust me... I don't think I wanna work at my job but really only paying to support the "jails" for guys that didn't get the death penalty because it was abolished.
I have to agree with this. Even at a young age I look at some cases and seen it take months, even years to execute a death row inmate.
I might be a more radical person on this but I think they should just execute them a few hours after the sentencing. A few hours or maybe a day seem to me more than enough time to get things ready.
I would like to state since there are poeple saying it should be life in prison instead of execution. I agree that this would be a harsher punishment than the death penalty, but with how many people murder, it simply isn't financially feasable. if we kept all murderers in prison for the rest of their lives, our economy would collapse. Then there are the criminals who murder and aren't sentenced to life,. Thhey get out and are free to kill again. They always say that the murderers or such are "rehabilitated". I myself don't believe this to be true in at least half the cases. Then there are the ones who are released on good behavior, with something like life on parole. There are of course ones who really are fit to live in society and are truely repentant, but i also believe most of these are just intelligent criminals who know what they did was wrong but intend to do it again. There are many cases of murderers who kill, get out of prison and kill again. With the death penalty in place, they fear to be caught and are at the very least less likely to do these crimes. In California, the crime rate is much higher than in most other states, so believe they at least should keep it. And i also agree with Vinitachi. The criminals sentenced to death should be executed soon after sentencing. It is simply a waste of tax-payers money to keep them alive for months and years before they are executed. And I'd like to finish by adding these are personal opinions and some may not believe in them, but I refuse to retract them.