Always a pleasure to see these re-treaded, as I said before. (The previous thread on this lurks in the bottom of the 'Tank.
)
That said, I'm ambivelant about it. The only effect of capital punishment is, as Cail mentioned, that the person executed will never re-offend.
That is the only point in its favour. Generally, the inefficiency of the justice system puts me off, if only for the reason that Creator mentioned: Establishing undeniable guilt.
Is it alright to execute an innocent in the process of "making everybody else safe?"
Generally, I'm in favour of that Heinleinian (thanks Syl) system of
lex talonis, literally, the law of the claw. An eye for an eye sort of thing. If there is no doubt that the person is guilty.
And I'd support executing rapists with that same condition. Certainly I think that they're more likely to offend than the majority of murderers.
For me, everything is circumstantial, and precedent is a dangerous argument. It all depends on the merits of each individual case.
I'm
not in favour of the government deciding these things on the whole, because I don't trust government.
I'm not in favour of "the people" deciding either, because I don't particularly trust them. When it comes down to it, I think the peolpe are more motivated by the idea of vengeance than the state is.
Finding and executing somebody is all very well, but as has been pointed out, mistakes are made with depressing frequency. And what we
want to hear often weighs heavier than what we
should hear.
Just had a case here where a guy was sentenced (to life) for killing a young girl. The Judge disallowed four eyewitness testimonies for the defence, on the basis that the polices case,
while circumstantial made sense when taken as a whole.
Now if he's guilty, and it can be proven, by all means lock him up, even execute him. But he left court protesting his innocence, at a trial where his only defense was disallowed. Too many questions.
How often have people been found innocent after
years spent in jail? If we simply imprison them, it allows some small room for error. Execution doesn't.
So yeah. Ambivelant. Some cases I could be for, some cases I could be against. And I think Alynna's suggestion in some other thread about the victims family having to be the executioners is an excellent one.
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