I mean, why did we ever do away with the guillotine in the first place?
People are not scared of the current laws/punishments, maybe this would put a new face on breaking the law

4/19/2006 11:03:33 PM

This thread is fucking idiotic.

4/19/2006 11:04:00 PM

Paging theDuke866.

4/19/2006 11:05:29 PM

i hold no ideas that it would cure the ills of society

but it would be fucking awesome to watch

4/19/2006 11:12:10 PM

good god no

i like living in a relatively civil society, thank you

4/19/2006 11:12:48 PM

naw man

pay per view

4/19/2006 11:15:57 PM

I'll go ahead and say no to this. It would just be fodder for the sick people that would enjoy watching something like that.

4/19/2006 11:16:32 PM

it's not sick to want to witness someone get what's coming to them

but then that's assuming that the person is guilty 100% of the time

4/19/2006 11:17:57 PM

I'm just gonna let this one fizzle out on its own, unless it just gets even more absurdly chit chatty and stupid.

i'd prefer not to get into the business of locking threads just because they're dumb.

4/19/2006 11:18:10 PM

Ok, thats a stupid idea.



However, as a joke and just to see what kind of debate I could drum up, when I was in Youth Legislature back in highschool (a mock NC legislature program done through the YMCA) I wrote a bill to build a gladiator arena in Raleigh. Anyone sentance to death could go and fight in gladiator tournaments. It would reduce prison population, raise revenue for the state (tickets) and actually give those convicted a chance to survive. The winner would go to a sort of gladiator retirement home. Still prison, but they would have some luxuries

4/20/2006 1:34:24 AM

I would not be opposed to that.

4/20/2006 1:36:54 AM

i think the public should be allowed to watch people be executed. they would serve as an example and would help deter other criminals from murdering since they actually witnessed the punishment.

4/20/2006 1:38:14 AM

Boo Death Penalty

4/20/2006 1:39:27 AM

Despite that I usually lean toward the left on everything else, I see no problem with the death penatly.

4/20/2006 1:49:55 AM

I'll never shed a tear for convicted murderers.

If the death penalty serves as a deterrent to even 1 potential murder, then it has served it's purpose.

Plus the death penalty gives families of the victims some form of closure.

4/20/2006 1:53:04 AM

i say we handcuff the perp in the town sq and give the family of the victim baseball bats

4/20/2006 1:54:17 AM

I have mixed feelings on this, actually.

On one hand, it would be a circus and a bloodsport.

On the other hand, it is not unrelated to my stance that, while I have no quarrel with the death penalty, I believe that we should each be more personally accountable for it, particularly jurors, judges, and governors, and that this would cut into the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that people seem to have.

4/20/2006 1:54:26 AM

Quote :

"i think the public should be allowed to watch people be executed. they would serve as an example and would help deter other criminals from murdering since they actually witnessed the punishment. "

what murderer would really go see an execution?

DEATH PENALTY IS NOT A DETERRENT

4/20/2006 2:18:09 AM

I think we should have totally arbitrary death penalty.

first make it random, like a crap shoot. but also bias it so it will favor executing the poor and minorities. and then make it completely irrelevant in every third state. oh, and factor in the phase of the moon, while we're at it. what the hell.

now that would be a cool death penalty system.

oh... wait.

4/20/2006 2:36:53 AM

For centuries the death penalty, often accompanied by barbarous refinements, has been trying to hold crime in check; yet crime persists. Why? Because the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in a state of equilibrium.

Albert Camus

An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life.

Albert Camus

4/20/2006 1:24:49 PM

Quote :

"If the death penalty serves as a deterrent to even 1 potential murder, then it has served it's purpose. "

If the death penalty kills even one innocent man, then it should be abolished forever.

[Edited on April 20, 2006 at 1:28 PM. Reason : ]

4/20/2006 1:28:41 PM

Quote :

"Plus the death penalty gives families of the victims some form of closurevengeance."

4/20/2006 1:39:40 PM

Vengeance is mine, sayeth Alvis.

And then he shot that guy right in his freaking face.

4/20/2006 1:41:18 PM

Quote :

"If the death penalty kills even one innocent man, then it should be abolished forever."

While horrible, I can ideologically justify having innocents killed, so long as (per the GrumpyGOP stance) we have a net positive number of lives saved.

Of course, I understand that you're largely just pointing out the flaw in the If the death penalty serves as a deterrent to even 1 potential murder, then it has served it's purpose argument. I resolve both with the "are we saving lives, on the whole" consideration...although I still then apply the "would I be comfortable with throwing the switch myself" as a final sanity check.

4/20/2006 2:24:23 PM

Quote :

"An execution is not simply death. It is just as different from the privation of life as a concentration camp is from prison. It adds to death a rule, a public premeditation known to the future victim, an organization which is itself a source of moral sufferings more terrible than death. Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated can be compared. For there to be an equivalency, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him and who, from that moment onward, had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life. Albert Camus"

this man is smarter than the lot of us

4/20/2006 2:37:39 PM

We're axing a dude this Friday just down the street.

4/20/2006 2:39:06 PM

that analogy is fucking retarded

4/20/2006 2:39:35 PM

how is there a net positive of lives saved if death row inmates never got out of prison because they got life?

4/20/2006 2:40:45 PM

I should clarify: net positive number of innocent lives saved.

4/20/2006 2:46:45 PM

again, if the people who are supposed to be executed are just left in prison for life, who's innocent lives are they taking?

4/20/2006 2:51:22 PM

lets flip a quarter, heads you live, tails you die.

4/20/2006 2:52:35 PM

guards, other inmates (i guess not as innocent as some, but if they're in for something that doesn't warrant death), other people if they escape

the argument that GrumpyGOP makes is that death row inmates kill more innocents in this manner than even the most liberal (and I'm not using that as a political term) estimates of how many innocent people have been killed from the death penalty.

4/20/2006 2:54:04 PM

does he work for the bureau of prisons? I'd like to see statistics on the number of correctional officers killed by death row inmates


http://www.americancopmagazine.com/articles/bwalls/BehindWalls.htm

Quote :

"In the past six years, 47 of our brothers and sisters have died in the line of duty."

while not the greatest source in the world, this poorly formatted article it is written by a CO. No convincing in the world can tell me that all the death row inmates in america have a total of less than 47 victims. And this isnt deaths caused by death row inmates alone. Its total

[Edited on April 20, 2006 at 3:12 PM. Reason : stats]

4/20/2006 3:02:54 PM

i agree with this thread, but only because i have an inherent bloodlust that runs in completely contradiction to my liberal tendencies...

go figure

4/20/2006 3:18:31 PM

watch more movies, thats how I get mine out

4/20/2006 3:19:33 PM

if we allow public executions, I'm moving to Canada for all my murdering

4/20/2006 3:21:22 PM

alot of the argument against the death penalty, for me, stems less from a concern for order or justice themselves, than it does for caring about having a general sense of civility

I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN A BARBARIC SOCIETY

4/20/2006 3:26:12 PM

too late, move to Canada or Switzerland

4/20/2006 3:29:56 PM

Quote :

"I DO NOT WANT TO LIVE IN A BARBARIC SOCIETY"

I call it barbaric when you rape and kill 40 babies and you're allowed to live 25 more years on appeals till you're finally slipped a needle.

If the evidence is conclusive and he is killed, say 20 days after the accident, the sting of his punishment would serve as a real reminder to the rest of the community that this iwll not be tolerated. But 25 years later, the victims are long forgotten, no one remembers it, and it's been reduced to a 25-year-old news report, then the death of an inmate really doesn't have that sting that it ought to. It's pretty much impotent after a year.

4/20/2006 3:33:03 PM

its pretty big news whenever some is executed

4/20/2006 3:43:19 PM

really? off the top of your head, who was the last executed in NC? in the US?

yeah that's what i thought.

bigger news than tom cruise's baby alright.

[Edited on April 20, 2006 at 3:49 PM. Reason : *]

4/20/2006 3:49:39 PM

it might be big news because hippies make it big news with protests. THat's usually the topic of the news. You might hear what that person did to be on death row behind the scenes, but it's ususally about the moratorium discussion, the vigils, the blah.

Crazy, no one holds vigils for the slain people 25 years ago that these monsters tortured.

If you get caught killing someone red handed and the community comes out the day after, drags you to the city square, and hangs your ass, people will think twice about it, I guarantee.

4/20/2006 3:51:21 PM

i also gurantee that you hate america.

its called right to a trial. its called keeping innocent people alive.
or would you like us to come up with a test to see if people will kill someone and then lock up all those people before they do anything.

4/20/2006 3:55:06 PM

^^

you know

we use to do that

was crime less in that day and age

no

[Edited on April 20, 2006 at 3:55 PM. Reason : .]

4/20/2006 3:55:13 PM

^ bad comparison.

^^ I don't hate America. You have a right to a fair and speedy trial. Not one that takes 25 years. That's a bastardization of the legal system.

4/20/2006 4:00:35 PM

Quote :

"really? off the top of your head, who was the last executed in NC? in the US? yeah that's what i thought. bigger news than tom cruise's baby alright. "

That happened yesterday you raving douche

Quote :

" You might hear what that person did to be on death row behind the scenes, but it's ususally about the moratorium discussion, the vigils, the blah. "

Thats because 10,000 hippies couldnt save a condemned inmate on the date of his/her execution. The bigger issue is saving the next (wo)man up.

Quote :

"If you get caught killing someone red handed and the community comes out the day after, drags you to the city square, and hangs your ass, people will think twice about it, I guarantee."

damn that pesky 5th amendment. nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

I submit that instead of thinking twice about murdering people, they would think twice about getting caught

4/20/2006 4:05:08 PM

no
no its not

a trial conducted in 5 minutes with no appeals process is not fair
speedy means they cant hold you for 10 years without giving you a trial. speedy does not mean they have to execute you 10 minutes after your conviction.

you dont hate america. you hate the constitution.

4/20/2006 4:06:20 PM

Quote :

"If you get caught killing someone red handed and the community comes out the day after, drags you to the city square, and hangs your ass, people will think twice about it, I guarantee."

If there is irrefutable proof, why in the hell do they deserve more than one trail. That trial could last less than a week.

witness 1: I saw it
witness 2: I saw it
witness 3: DNA
witness 4: no aliby
witness 5: cameras
witness 6: forensic evidence


kill him.

4/20/2006 4:07:57 PM

the trial would never last less than one week. The case wouldnt go to trial for some time. Stop making arguments in terms of 17th century angry mobs and work within the current criminal justice system

4/20/2006 4:10:45 PM

what if..
witness 1 and 2 were told what they saw by the police
witness 3 was falsified or lost at some point
witness 4 was not allowed in the court room
witness 5 was grainy or uncertain
witness 6 same as witness 3

would you still want to convict them and kill them 5 minutes later?
because there are way too many cases that look like what you said and 5 years later we find out its what i said.

4/20/2006 4:11:54 PM