Abolish the death penalty

[ToddStarnes]

Yes, it's well known that eye witness testimony is basically infallible.

[spacemonkey]

The human will always be the weakest link in the chain, even though we created the chain.

[Divinity11]

Abolish??

Heeeeellllll no. If nothing else, we need to INCREASE death penalties. Sorry. We have DNA science now. Mistakes should be minimal.

[nordictruce]

I believe in the death penalty. Strongly. There are some things you can do that deserve the chair. You see no one saying Tim McVeigh didn't deserve to die.

My maternal grandfather killed two people in a gas station robbery a few months before I was born and was on death row until I was what.. 19 or so. He did it. Shit he chased one of them down the street and shot them so they couldn't name him. Then went and bought some liquor and weed and slept like a baby. Zero remorse. The man deserved to die and he's my blood. But didn't. They reduced it to25 to life and he got out. And was back 6 months later damb near beating a man to death over a dice game

I am a grown ass man I'm not afraid of anyone. I am f**k petrified of my grandfather and dude loves the shit out of me lol. 6'6 about 240 and just zero f**k conscious. He will kill you for pissing him off and eat biscuits and gravy afterwards. When I was growing up people used to literally leave me alone because of how bat shit crazy my grandfather was...and he was on death row lol


People who say abolish the death penalty don't know people on it. There are some people who do not deserve to be in this planet. Even in jail.

[Saz]

[IndependentProfessor]

Couple points.

1) I agree that the death penalty is applied unfairly. Some states do it, other states don't. The ones that do it, apply it in large part to one demographic (whether or not that demographic actually commits the crimes in higher proportions is for another debate). But, so far, the only answer to this problem that has been presented is that we abolish it. Has no one considered the other alternative? That we reinstate it nationwide and make all crimes of sufficient magnitude subject to it? I'm not necessarily for or against it (reason to follow in #2), but abolishing it is not the ONLY solution.

2) The sentence for a crime should include elements of both punishment AND rehabilitation. A person should receive a sufficient slap on the wrist so that he won't want to do it again, but should then be rehabilitated so that hopefully he is not put into the same situation that caused him to begin down that path to begin with. However, I believe we should all be able to agree that some people simply cannot be rehabilitated. Manson and Dahmer would probably be good examples. This guy, on the other hand, I believe may be a great example for rehabbing one's way out of future crimes.

For instance, what if we, as a state (not sure the Fed could mandate, but they might be able to) were to sentence someone to 25 years in prison for a crime. Furthermore, not just "sit in a cell" prison, but "work your ass outside all day" prison. However, you would be able to trade "outside time" for "education time". In other words, you would be allowed to go to 8 hours of school per day to get a GED, and that 8 hours spent earning your GED would count against 8 hours of labor. Then, every year of education that you received would reduce your sentence by a year.

But, getting a GED only takes 4 years. That means you still have 13 more years to serve (25 years minus 4 years to get GED minus 4 years credit). So, the inmate could choose to get a degree, learn a trade (or multiple trades!), or similar.

Basically, what I'm envisioning is, after 12.5 years, you get a college grad (perhaps even with 2 degrees) getting out of prison, instead of after 25 years you release a muscle-bound guy who is still going to be in the same situation as before.

Think about how this would affect the guy in the case in the OP. 3rd grade reading level, can't do math, no proper upbringing. While prison won't be able to fix the upbringing part, it can certainly remedy the education part. So, for every criminal that commits a crime worthy of the death penalty, the sentencing court would decide if there is any possibility of rehabilitation. If there is, then death is taken off the table, and an attempt is made at rehab.

[Saz]

[Saz]

[IndependentProfessor]

[Divinity11]