The Death Penalty: Yay or Nay?
Elmo~WAWU~Bn-2~
2012/06/26 18:43:14
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55 votes
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Top Opinion
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Jack's Pearl 2013/02/15 22:58:56
Prominent Connecticut physician William Petit said he woke to discover his face covered in blood and two men standing over him with a gun, CNN reported.
Dr Petit was the sole survivor of an alleged home invasion in 2007 that saw his wife Jennifer Hawke-Petit, and daughters Hayley, 17 and Michaela, 11 killed.
Steven Hayes, 47, and Joshua Komisarjevsky, 30 are alleged to have tied up Dr Petit to a post in his basement, while they robbed and sexually assaulted his wife and youngest daughter before setting the home on fire.
Dr Petit described falling asleep on the couch of his home on a Sunday evening, before waking up at 3am during the
1. Their mentality in order to catch the next one.
2. Their background to be able to spot the signs earlier hopefully before another becomes dangerous.
I am not suggesting that catching and studying one person would be enough , but over a period of time, the more information gathered, the better.
I imagine I would be screaming for retribution from every street corner.
However my main concern would be that the killer is caught and that the risk had been neutralised.
I would have to face the situation that I am no more entitled to kill than anyone else. (No matter how I felt at the time).
What we do know, is, that rational people are not cold blooded killers.
Mental illness takes many forms. To be fair serial killers are thankfully very rare, the fact that the same few names are mentioned again and again shows this. There is no evidence at all that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. Killing is wrong, whether they do it or we do.
The law is bound to consider the perpetrator's state of mind and determine whether the actions, were those of a sound mind. Nowadays, with the decline in the credibility of charges of satanic possession, anybody capable of insane acts has to be closely scrutinised for soundness of mind.
There have been rather too many cases of well positioned individuals trying to influence the legal process and to be seen to be doing so in order to ingratiate themselves to a restless electorate.
The secret to effective Law and Justice is the concept of impartiality. That is to say, that the law must be consistent and rational. If it is based on emotion, or outrage or self righteous indignation, sentencing would be more likely to be based upon the notoriety of the case and/or populistic electoral vote chasing.
The law has to be able to be seen to be impartial and if it fails to this end it will have rendered itself open to charges of untrustworthiness and inconsistency.
I notice that there seems to be a tendency, running through this thread, for mass murderers to be used as the justification for the death penalty, but as far as I am aware they are not the only ones on death row. What of the others?
Punishment has to be seen to be reaso...
The law is bound to consider the perpetrator's state of mind and determine whether the actions, were those of a sound mind. Nowadays, with the decline in the credibility of charges of satanic possession, anybody capable of insane acts has to be closely scrutinised for soundness of mind.
There have been rather too many cases of well positioned individuals trying to influence the legal process and to be seen to be doing so in order to ingratiate themselves to a restless electorate.
The secret to effective Law and Justice is the concept of impartiality. That is to say, that the law must be consistent and rational. If it is based on emotion, or outrage or self righteous indignation, sentencing would be more likely to be based upon the notoriety of the case and/or populistic electoral vote chasing.
The law has to be able to be seen to be impartial and if it fails to this end it will have rendered itself open to charges of untrustworthiness and inconsistency.
I notice that there seems to be a tendency, running through this thread, for mass murderers to be used as the justification for the death penalty, but as far as I am aware they are not the only ones on death row. What of the others?
Punishment has to be seen to be reasonable/rational as opposed to being emotional/partial.
Of course decent people will be appalled when they are confronted with tales of atrocity, but they must not use their self righteous indignation as a justification to carry out their own actions and place themselves subject to charges of atrocity.