Do you support the Death Penalty?

[grumbler]

I'm not opposed to the death penalty in principle, but I'm opposed to the way it is applied here.

Then you approve of torture, according to the Simplogue way of thinking. 

[DGuller]

I'm not opposed to the death penalty in principle, but I'm opposed to the way it is applied here.

Too deadly?

[Barrister]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

[Sheilbh]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

Have you ever wished that it was an option?

[Barrister]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

Have you ever wished that it was an option?

Yes, but not on any of my own files.

But Robert Pickton and Paul Bernardo really deserve to fry.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My views on the DP are a little convoluted.

I think for some crimes, concepts like justice and equity, where you match an appropriate equitable punishment to a crime, demand death. ("Justice demands death.")

However, as a moral issue I don't agree with the State taking someone who isn't an active threat to the State or its people and executing them. Which would seem to conflict with my first statement, and it does if you believe that I would only argue the State behave in a moral way. I think morality and proper State behavior are not always synonymous. I think the State often must acting amorally to protect the interests of its citizens, and sometimes immorally to do so.

As a practical issue I believe there are too many problems with the American justice system to continue capital punishment. It is not applied equitably and it's too important a thing to apply based on how much money you can afford for a lawyer. In an adversarial system that is a hard thing to avoid with any sentencing outcome.

It is massively expensive, there is no reason a robust appeals process should take 25-30 years (as was the case in California before they stopped executing people regularly.) If you're going to do the thing, you give the condemned a full and robust set of appeals but you create a special scheduling/fast track system for capital defendants that can exhaust their appeals with little unnecessary delays based on court schedules etc. Texas actually does a good job of getting people through the system faster, but is also probably one of the least just implementations of the death penalty. I'd want a system that was both fast and just, which isn't easy to design or operate.

In a hypothetical science fiction scenario where we have machines that can read perfect memories from a defendant's brain and we find from those memories evidence the person planned and committed a murder for example, I'd be fine with marching them off to some sort of futuristic execution machine 24 hours later that disintegrates them or etc.

[Scipio]

Oppose in all cases. Cause Jesus said so.

[Ideologue]

I'm not opposed to the death penalty in principle, but I'm opposed to the way it is applied here.

Then you approve of torture, according to the Simplogue way of thinking. 

LOL FUMBLER

[crazy canuck]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

We have a system with its fair share of wrongful convictions.

[Barrister]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

We have a system with its fair share of wrongful convictions.

*had*

We then had a number of commissions that fixed those wrongful convictions.  I'm unaware of any notable wrongful conviction cases in the last, oh, 10-20 years.

[crazy canuck]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

We have a system with its fair share of wrongful convictions.

*had*

We then had a number of commissions that fixed those wrongful convictions.  I'm unaware of any notable wrongful conviction cases in the last, oh, 10-20 years.

All criminal justice systems have inherent imperfections.  We do the best we can on imperfect information but there is no way to guarrantee that someone will not be wrongfully convicted. 

[jimmy olsen]

Yet more evidence of our sterling justice system.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/12/21425647-the-difficult-part-is-over-ryan-ferguson-speaks-after-murder-conviction-overturned?lite

[Camerus]

Support for egregious cases of treason.

[Josquius]

Keep it theoretically on the books for the worst of the scummiest scum bag mass murdering cases but in practice pretty much never use it.

[mongers]

I support the Canadian justice system, and think we'd be able to deal with capital punishment in a just and humane fashion.

We have a system with its fair share of wrongful convictions.

*had*

We then had a number of commissions that fixed those wrongful convictions.  I'm unaware of any notable wrongful conviction cases in the last, oh, 10-20 years.

"Well he would say that, wouldn't he?"