In the several decades I've known Bill, and maybe because of that, I have gone from being mostly opposed to the death penalty to being a real enthusiast for it. I came to the conclusion that to be truly pro-life, one has to be pro-death.
The penalty should be routinely applied whenever a person's illegal actions lead to anyone's death. That would include felony murder and drunk driving. Sure the killer didn't mean it, but that's no consolation to the victim.
Did anyone freeze to death because of the hack of that East Coast gas system last year? Strap 'em in if we can find them.
The Catholic Church is my country, my first loyalty, but its view on the death penalty is widely misunderstood and can't be changed by a Pope who talks too much. JPII argued--not ruled, he does not have that power--that it was permissible only to preserve the civic order. That would cover anybody who caused a death during the George Floyd riots, or wherever crime has become so endemic as to threaten the civil order.
It would also cover the police who murdered Floyd because that was even more destructive of the civic order. Instead we let the bad cops live and then start gumming law enforcement to death with stupid rules and petty punishments.
I do not buy it. Inevitably there will be persons wrongfully convicted and executed. And there will always be errors, curruption, perjury, lab errors, etc. Be intellectually honest. Say what percentage of wrongfully executed persons is acceptable to you in your pursuit of capital punishment for those that are in fact truly guilty. Don't get me wrong. If our systems were infallible, I would be more than willing to throw the switch on murderers.
I don't know the comment policy here and I would not wish to violate it. Although I am tempted to do so in describing the human piece of filth that murdered Jessica Lunsford. I remember that case very vividly, and also having the feeling that if it were in my power, I would strap the killer to an electric chair and push the button myself. As it turns out though, her murderer, while sentenced to death, died in prison. He was elderly already at the time of the disgusting crime, and he had not spent an unusual period on death row before expiring.
The problem I see with the death penalty in the United States is that its implementation is so profoundly uneven. Consider the BTK killer. Given a life sentence of course, because he confessed to his crimes and offered law enforcement with help identifying the bodies of the many people he murdered. If I remember correctly, his crimes may have occurred during the period after SCOTUS deemed the death penalty un-Constitutional in Furman v. Georgia, but before it permitted reinstatement under revised guidelines.
But there are many such cases, of individuals that seem oh so very deserving of capital punishment, who often escape it. And cases of people who do receive it, who are comparably much less deserving. Off the top of my head, there was one such case just this week, of an execution that was actually botched and therefore called off in Alabama. The convict was a for-hire killer. Certainly his victim did not deserve to die. About that there is no question whatsoever. But there was otherwise nothing particularly unusual about his crime. It was a murder of an absolutely innocent woman, whose husband wished to kill her. For some reason that I do not know, the jury actually voted by 11 to 1, against the imposition of the death penalty. Perhaps there were mitigating circumstances of which I am not aware. Nonetheless, the judge overrode the recommendation. A cursory examination of sentences often reveals all kinds of mitigating factors in executions that are actually carried out. And sometimes, all too often, to reiterate my earlier point, a seeming lack of any mitigating factors whatsoever, in cases where the ultimate punishment is never pursued.
If we cannot figure out a way to administer the punishment evenly, and to the most heinous of murders only, perhaps we shouldn't be administering it.
Capital punishment in America is not cruel, but it is unusual. Even in the states which enforce the death penalty, let alone across the nation as a whole, it’s arguably arbitrary and capricious which few of the many equally deserving actually take that final walk. Against the backdrop of socioeconomic disparities and some cases of actual innocence, the system needs to be much surer and tighter and more consistent than it is now with the irrevocable at stake.
Yes it is. I find it unethical and egregiously immoral for a convicted, proven, murderer to be alive a minute longer than the victims he coldly snuffed out. The opposing side posits how "expensive" it is or how "innocent people" have wrongfully been convicted. Can I ask, what exactly does that have to do with the death penalty? The flaws in the justice system lie squarely on the people who work within it: prosecution, defense, judge, jury, appeals, forensics. None of those have any bearing on the efficacy of the punishment. It simply is. As to how it stops crime, it ends the life of a blood-craving criminal. I've never bought the deterrent argument, but it does deter the already dead criminal from committing their evil further. Why does the state have that power? Because in the end, the monster is still human, and you don't want his or her blood on the hands of one out for vengeance. There has to be a mediator, a third party to bear that burden. I find the arguments against the death penalty so unconvincing, one would have to prove it to be a sentient being out for blood for me to stand against it.
I hasten to add this: What I said applies to the system, not to the rest of us. If you catch someone committing a heinous crime, do your best to kill the bastard. In general I agree with the author concerning the morality of capital punishment. It's only the the wrongfully convicted that is concerning.
The dividing line between right and left on the issue of capital punishment is not always clear cut. Traditional Catholics, for example, tend to lean conservative. Their pro-life religious convictions not only cause them to oppose abortion but capital punishment as well. That is, I believe the official position of the church.
In the several decades I've known Bill, and maybe because of that, I have gone from being mostly opposed to the death penalty to being a real enthusiast for it. I came to the conclusion that to be truly pro-life, one has to be pro-death.
The penalty should be routinely applied whenever a person's illegal actions lead to anyone's death. That would include felony murder and drunk driving. Sure the killer didn't mean it, but that's no consolation to the victim.
Did anyone freeze to death because of the hack of that East Coast gas system last year? Strap 'em in if we can find them.
The Catholic Church is my country, my first loyalty, but its view on the death penalty is widely misunderstood and can't be changed by a Pope who talks too much. JPII argued--not ruled, he does not have that power--that it was permissible only to preserve the civic order. That would cover anybody who caused a death during the George Floyd riots, or wherever crime has become so endemic as to threaten the civil order.
It would also cover the police who murdered Floyd because that was even more destructive of the civic order. Instead we let the bad cops live and then start gumming law enforcement to death with stupid rules and petty punishments.
I do not buy it. Inevitably there will be persons wrongfully convicted and executed. And there will always be errors, curruption, perjury, lab errors, etc. Be intellectually honest. Say what percentage of wrongfully executed persons is acceptable to you in your pursuit of capital punishment for those that are in fact truly guilty. Don't get me wrong. If our systems were infallible, I would be more than willing to throw the switch on murderers.
I don't know the comment policy here and I would not wish to violate it. Although I am tempted to do so in describing the human piece of filth that murdered Jessica Lunsford. I remember that case very vividly, and also having the feeling that if it were in my power, I would strap the killer to an electric chair and push the button myself. As it turns out though, her murderer, while sentenced to death, died in prison. He was elderly already at the time of the disgusting crime, and he had not spent an unusual period on death row before expiring.
The problem I see with the death penalty in the United States is that its implementation is so profoundly uneven. Consider the BTK killer. Given a life sentence of course, because he confessed to his crimes and offered law enforcement with help identifying the bodies of the many people he murdered. If I remember correctly, his crimes may have occurred during the period after SCOTUS deemed the death penalty un-Constitutional in Furman v. Georgia, but before it permitted reinstatement under revised guidelines.
But there are many such cases, of individuals that seem oh so very deserving of capital punishment, who often escape it. And cases of people who do receive it, who are comparably much less deserving. Off the top of my head, there was one such case just this week, of an execution that was actually botched and therefore called off in Alabama. The convict was a for-hire killer. Certainly his victim did not deserve to die. About that there is no question whatsoever. But there was otherwise nothing particularly unusual about his crime. It was a murder of an absolutely innocent woman, whose husband wished to kill her. For some reason that I do not know, the jury actually voted by 11 to 1, against the imposition of the death penalty. Perhaps there were mitigating circumstances of which I am not aware. Nonetheless, the judge overrode the recommendation. A cursory examination of sentences often reveals all kinds of mitigating factors in executions that are actually carried out. And sometimes, all too often, to reiterate my earlier point, a seeming lack of any mitigating factors whatsoever, in cases where the ultimate punishment is never pursued.
If we cannot figure out a way to administer the punishment evenly, and to the most heinous of murders only, perhaps we shouldn't be administering it.
Capital punishment in America is not cruel, but it is unusual. Even in the states which enforce the death penalty, let alone across the nation as a whole, it’s arguably arbitrary and capricious which few of the many equally deserving actually take that final walk. Against the backdrop of socioeconomic disparities and some cases of actual innocence, the system needs to be much surer and tighter and more consistent than it is now with the irrevocable at stake.
Yes it is. I find it unethical and egregiously immoral for a convicted, proven, murderer to be alive a minute longer than the victims he coldly snuffed out. The opposing side posits how "expensive" it is or how "innocent people" have wrongfully been convicted. Can I ask, what exactly does that have to do with the death penalty? The flaws in the justice system lie squarely on the people who work within it: prosecution, defense, judge, jury, appeals, forensics. None of those have any bearing on the efficacy of the punishment. It simply is. As to how it stops crime, it ends the life of a blood-craving criminal. I've never bought the deterrent argument, but it does deter the already dead criminal from committing their evil further. Why does the state have that power? Because in the end, the monster is still human, and you don't want his or her blood on the hands of one out for vengeance. There has to be a mediator, a third party to bear that burden. I find the arguments against the death penalty so unconvincing, one would have to prove it to be a sentient being out for blood for me to stand against it.
Those in power in the government CANNOT be trusted with this power.
I hasten to add this: What I said applies to the system, not to the rest of us. If you catch someone committing a heinous crime, do your best to kill the bastard. In general I agree with the author concerning the morality of capital punishment. It's only the the wrongfully convicted that is concerning.
The dividing line between right and left on the issue of capital punishment is not always clear cut. Traditional Catholics, for example, tend to lean conservative. Their pro-life religious convictions not only cause them to oppose abortion but capital punishment as well. That is, I believe the official position of the church.