Is the death penalty effective? [ENDS 27/03/2011]

[-:Undertaker:-]

So you are against war on all grounds? being against war for the fact that its very likely that innocents will die in the process?

[Conservative,]

I used to be all for the death penalty.. until I really took a look at it.

Look at the sentences that are laid out to people today. The jury gets to decide whether the offender is right or wrong, and then the offender gets to die. Great fun for everybody. But think about it.. 5 minutes after the serum is injected, the lawyer runs in with evidence proving the sentence wrong. OOPS!

I don't know about places like the UK and US, but Canada definitely screws up. A lot.

That can be prevented if you have a thorough system. The UK currently doesn't have it after they messed up with Derrick Bentley, however that was just the jury being naive and if they had actually looked at the evidence they would've found him not guilty.

Mistakes do happen, but you can prevent them.

[DannLea]

So you are against war on all grounds? being against war for the fact that its very likely that innocents will die in the process?

War and capitol punishment are two TOTALLY different matters. Another debate for another day, but all in all, I'm 'fine' with war. It serves a purpose and makes us the free nation we are today. War serves its purpose, capitol punishment serves a death penalty that is uncalled for. See the difference?

That can be prevented if you have a thorough system. The UK currently doesn't have it after they messed up with Derrick Bentley, however that was just the jury being naive and if they had actually looked at the evidence they would've found him not guilty.

Mistakes do happen, but you can prevent them.

You're right, mistakes can be prevented... If you see them coming. Do you think the executioner is thinking "I wonder if this guy is innocent" when he's about to rip the neck off some guy? I seriously doubt that. For that fact, no one is. Everyone is thinking "Yay! We caught the bad guy, and he's going to get killed! We're all safe!". Sure, there may be a few people wondering, but it's obviously not a majority. If a majority of people were thinking this guy is innocent, then the poor innocent fella wouldn't be in the mess he's in. And as soon as the case is reopened and everyone starts questioning the verdict, and all the sudden the same person(s) who was a hero 20 years ago is suddenly a murderer.

My point is this, you can prevent mistakes, but, in my opinion, many mistakes have already been prevented because of the removal of capitol punishment. There are several cases where people have been executed innocently, and those are only a few cases. If there were one or two people who had a "Whoops!" execution, then maybe capitol punishment wouldn't be so frowned upon today. But in reality, the stakes are high, we're playing with life here. There is a 90% chance of the verdict being right.. but that's 90%. There's a 10% chance that that person is innocent. That person who has a wife at home, a middle-class job, friends by the boatload, a great family to live with just got killed because of that 10% chance. So what does that mean? To me, it means that 10% is too high. The person dying knows he's innocent, but because he pleads innocent, he looks like a remorseless murderer, and it's all because of a "Whoops!" mistake.

Falling down the stairs in front of your friends is a mistake you can fix,
Hitting someone's car is a mistake you can fix,
Someone wrongfully sentenced to jail can be fixed,
Someone innocently being murdered? That's one mistake that can't be fixed.

If they ever develop a time machine that will allow them to let all those wrongfully murdered people live again, then I'll be all for capitol punishment. It's used more as a scare anyways. But for now? When they're gone, they're gone, and I don't want to be caught in that net.

I do agree with you on one thing, though. The people who sentenced Derek Bentley were complete idiots. He should have been tried as a mentally challenged offender at the very least.