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Death Penalty
In the news today, LA's "Grim Sleeper" was sentenced to death for his serial rapes/murders. I have mixed feelings about the death penalty in general, and I'd like to hear what your thoughts are. Is it effective? Is it cruel and unusual? If we don't use the death penalty, what do we do with criminals like the Grim Sleeper?




The natural human drive is to resist death, and so the death penalty is less a punishment than a deterant. The problem with this is the existance of socio/psychopaths who have little regard for human life. Therefore the deterant has little effect. Also, the off chance of killing the innocent has far greater weight than the capital punishment of an offender. But laws are written to prevent crime before, not punish after. The law is beginning to slip into a reactive state rather than a proactive one. It really is a difficult call, but there are grey areas that have yet to be explored.
I'm overall against the death penalty, it makes little sense to murder someone for committing murder, that makes you no better than the murderer. Just stick them in jail and throw away the key.
The death penalty is nothing more than a cruel and unusual attempt to deter people from crime, but as we've learned, rape and murder have little to do with the victim or the punishment, it's all about someone's disturbing drive to commit the act/acts.
It's not murder if the law is prestated. If the legal punishment for murder is death, then carrying out that punishment is just that, not murder. The perpitrator must face legal consequences for their actions. Just like if cocaine were to become legal, we wouldn't release everyone who's convicted of cocaine-related offenses, because they occured while it was illegal. If a law is broken, the legal punishment needs to be given.
The death penalty is incredibly expensive. Much more so than imprisoning someone for life (because of all of the mandatory appeals that someone who is sentenced to death is entitled to).
The other problem I have with it is that is is disproportionately applied to racial/ethnic minorities and the economically marginalized.
I was wondering about that--the cost of life in prison vs. the cost of the death penalty. If life imprisonment is cheaper, it's an even stronger argument against the death penalty.
I was pro death penalty until I read An Innocent Man by John Grisham. It really changed how I viewed our justice system. Its disheartening really.