Execution itself makes the people look no better than the convicted.

Besides, why waste perfectly good labour force?

Execution should be reserved for Human Trafficking and Terrorism, even then.

My facebook status:

If Troy Davis was a white woman, he'd still be alive.

My friend's facebook status:

I want you all to sit and think about this for a minute - Troy Davis was executed tonight. Reviews of his case show that he was convicted on circumstantial evidence with plenty of reasonable doubt, and instead of saying 'this is fishy', the courts made him jump through hoops to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was innocent, a burden much heavier than what the prosecution ever had, an impossible burden. It doesn't matter whether Troy was innocent or not, really. What matters is that there was enough doubt to acquit, and the entire justice system decided it would be easier to murder a man than to admit the possibility of his innocence.

I can't justify murder. No matter what side of the law a person sits.

The punishment for death is....you got it death, hypocrites? I say not, as long as the death penalty was carried out by upstanding citizens and the long hand of the law let the person be executed! Two wrongs make it right you know.

As a person from a country where the death penalty has been abolished long ago and crime is now the order of the day... I wish it was back. Guys sentenced to life for rape and attempted homicide are back on the street within 10 years because (a: Our government is a fuck-up) our prisons are too crowded to accomodate everyone. These prisoners cost us billions in TAX every day the are there. Honsetly I would much rather they were just killed. Don't judge, most of you don't live in a place where crime is the rule not the exception nearly every day.

Prison is also much better than their everyday circumstances to a lot of these guys so a better deterrent is needed.

I'm glad you put it in that way, because I personally agree with you; it's crazy too because me and my gf always get into heated arguments when it comes to this topic. You see, my father murdered my mother back when my younger brother and I was 1 and 6yrs old, and till this day we both still wish that bastard was executed on the spot for that bullshit. No, instead he got the Life sentence. So you see, for everyone out there (my gf included) who thinks that execution is wrong, they're not looking at it from the griever's point of view. I say a life for a life, especially when it's downright fuckin murder.

I agree 100%.



I think part of the reason why it becomes hard to appeal something like this has to due to the fact that a cop was murdered. The public is very touchy when it come to cops, and soldiers being killed.

Kind of off topic, but I live in MA and about a year ago a cop was shot and killed during a department jewelry store robbery. The suspect who was also killed in the shoot out, actually had a lengthy criminal record, and was supposed to be serving multiple life sentences, yet the parole board decided to parole him just months before the robbery. You can imagine the public outcry over this, and the parole board eventually got the boot I believe.

Not to say Troy Davis is innocent or guilty, but it just goes to show that the legal system can be very hard to overcome when the murder of a cop is involved.

Mistaken Identity...

Murder and rape should be punishable by death. Its only fair. I believe in the oldest law in the world. An eye for an eye. And I know what Ghandi said but I don't care. No murderer or rapist should sit in a cage for life. They should be burned alive. Thats my opinion. I know many will disagree but its just an idea.

Murdering people to teach people that murder is wrong? I'm not particularly comfortable with that notion.


My state of Michigan removed the death penalty from our books centuries ago because someone was unjustly convicted for a crime and killed for it, while the perpetrator was discovered shortly after his death, I cannot in good faith support the death penalty at this point.


I will say though that my lack of support does not mean I don't think in certain scenarios it's arguable, but at present I can't get behind it with confidence, in lamens terms I'm kind of neutral on the issue.

No matter how bad a crime is, I still don't think society as a whole has a right to condemn/judge someone to death, only God/god can do that. As crowded as our prison system is, I still think locking them away for life is the fairest thing to do. 1st a person can get depressed, and stir crazy just sitting around doing nothing for a few months, just imagine what someone goes through if they where locked away for the rest of their life? 2ndly because of situations like this where someone could be wrongly convicted (not say Troy is) but. just the fact that there is doubt around a crime, I don't get how society could shrug it off. Lets say in a few months/years it comes out that someone else actually committed the crime. There is no coming back from death, and there is no way to undo wrongly sentencing someone to death.

I understand where you're coming from. I agree that someone could be wrongly accused and be killed would be terrible. But take the Casey Anthony case for example. There was more than enough evidence to put her away for a while. But because the prosecution couldn't find "A motive" she walked away free. Justice was raped that day...

He sounds like a typical douchebag gangbanger to me. He doesn't have my sympathy.

"Sounds like".

Sounds like you're being a tad bit judgemental.

Let me preface by saying that I believe Troy to be innocent.

However, it's still an eye for an eye in my book. Rapists should be castrated, in my opinion, but that'd be "cruel and unusual" so it wouldn't fly. Capital punishment would be so much cooler if they recreated the deaths from the Saw series. Give those fuckers what they really deserve.

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
-Mahatma Gandhi

or for the more Christian among us

"Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone."
-Jesus of Nazareth

I don't think either of these guys were big on killing, and I'm against the death penalty in all cases no matter how severe the crime.

First off, let me address a comment made earlier...



As far as I recall, studies have shown the possibility of a death penalty does nothing to crime rates.

I used to be in favor of the death penalty, myself, when I was younger. I had a different process in mind for it, though. For example, my thought would be that upon receiving the death penalty, the convicted would be given a suspended death sentence, and sent to prison for life without parole. Upon the commission of a felony in prison, the convict is taken to the execution chamber and executed via nitrogen asphyxiation (which is, in fact, found to be the most painless form of execution).

This way, prisoners could still file appeals and the like, and they would not be executed unless they showed themselves to be clear continuing dangers to society.

However, the older I've gotten, and the more I think about it, the more I'm against the death penalty as a whole. The problem is that the death penalty is the ultimate final punishment. There is no restitution possible once implemented, if it's found the convicted was in fact innocent. Through DNA testing, groups like the Innocence Project have proved the innocence of a not-insignificant number of death row inmates. Of course, nothing can replace the time lost in prison, but the state can offer financial restitution to make their remaining years easier.

And for those who say that the system works because inmates were found innocent before execution, I point to the case of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas. He was convicted of killing his three children in a fire that was determined to be arson. Shortly before he was set to be executed, arson experts took another look at the evidence and found the science used was flawed, and that it could not have been arson. The governor (Rick Perry) was asked to grant a 30 day reprieve so that an appeal based on this new evidence could go through. He refused, and Willingham was executed. The Texas Forensic Science Commission has since affirmed that the ruling of arson was a flawed one. In other words, we have at least one innocent individual who was executed.

That's one too many.

Ok, for all of you who are against the death penalty, what do you propose would be a proper punishment for the case I stated earlier? I know I shouldn't be putting my business out there, but at the same time I'm really curious as to what you guys think? What do you do with the accused in such a case? Mind you, she was murdered in cold blood, arrow to the neck and heart, in her sleep; WHILE we were sleeping right next to her. And the crazy thing is, just as there's cases out there where the accused is innocent, there a dozen more out there who's like mine, or much worse. What if the person who was killed was YOUR mother, father, brother, sister, child? Would you still feel the same way about giving that criminal time in jail, instead of taking his/her life for robbing the ones you love the most theirs?

Hmmm...

I don't know if I'm completely able to decide whether the death penalty is right or not. I tend to be the 'plays both sides' type, and have a hard time seeing anything but the gray between things that are more often black and white. That said, I don't think a murderer should be put to death. I think they should be forced to live as long as possible, as miserable as possible. They've ended an entire life so they'll pay with an entire life, not just a brief moment of painless punishment.

On the other hand, certain people cannot be allowed to live. If a person kills people, many of them, and does even worse things than that while they're still alive... I see no reason for them to continue living and there should be nothing humane about the way they go. None of this can happen without absolute certainty that they are guilty, however.

This, much like abortion, immigration, etc... Is one massive gray area and I can't simply say yes or no. To do so is not being ignorant, but ignoring with purpose. Well, to be frank, the law is there to provide judgment completely void of emotion... It's supposed to be unaffected by the grieving family, however unfair that may be in some ways. That said, after my dad and stepmom separated, she started seeing some guy. My sisters and I had grown very close to our stepsister and brother during that time, so it was rough. Several months after they moved out, their mother's boyfriend shot and killed her and my stepsister... So I do completely understand that perspective. When I think about them, I immediately wish he didn't kill himself afterward, because I would've wanted him to suffer the rest of his life, not just to die and be done.

Yes very well to be angry and want to kill people who killed. But punishment must fit the crime. This is why we have trials by jury. Because the victims and those near them may not be of the right state of mind to fairly judge the accused. The point of the criminal system is that you stop society from continuing on a path that is not good for itself. You may want someone killed just due to you hating them so much but:

A dead man learns nothing.

You are no better than the murderer if you wished them dead.

Ah, an appeal to emotion.

If it were me and someone I loved were brutally murdered, I would want to tear them apart, and would want to see that they are destroyed in the most brutal and painful way possible.

On the other hand, I'm self-cognizant enough to realize that what I would be after isn't justice. It's vengeance. That's why I know I shouldn't be in charge of what happens to that individual. I'd be much more inclined to act out of emotion than out of reason.

I see the point you're both making, I get it, believe me, I completely understand. I know I shouldn't let passion get the best of me, and I do understand that killing the murderer would make me no better. That said, I suppose that you both (and everyone else who share your views) are apart of a group of people who are just better/more humane than I am. For me, and everyone else who share the same mindset, it's just not good enough. To tell you both the truth, he has recently wrote my family saying that everyday he's sorry for what he did, and regrets it every minute of his life. I suppose he's "learned" his lesson and his soul is "suffering" for it. He is now pleading for our forgiveness, more so mine than anyone else. No, I'm sorry, it's just not good enough for me. When murderer kill individuals, they're changing not only their lives, but the victim's family as well, whether it's for the good or the bad. Them suffering and learning their mistakes (to me) are never going to bring that person back, or even amount to the value of what that victim's life meant to us.

But then, I seen this comment:


"It's vengeance"....you know what, you are absolutely correct as well. That goes right along with ShoesUnited's quote "You are no better than the murderer if you wished them dead." I suppose I never really thought about it like that, even after initially reading the first two comments.

Ok guys, I appreciate your comments, thank you. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to try and make this thread about something personal; I was just really curious to the answers I would receive back. Again, I understand what you're all saying, but I suppose I'll forever just have a vengeful and murdering heart, because still today I cannot forgive him. Or any other murderer out there who thinks they can just take a life out there, for whatever the reason they have.