BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Philosophy Do You Believe In Death Penalty?

What is your view on the use of capital punishment? Is it proper? Does it deliver justice? Or is it an easy way our for the murderer? Or simply another form of unjust violence?

Also, if your family has suffered through the aftermath of a violent crime, I am very interested in hearing from you. Does the thought that the murderer will receive death penalty bring you peace or more sorrow?

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When I was younger, I was totally opposed to the death penalty. Seemed barbaric & just wrong.

Now, not so much. I have come to believe some people are not redeemable and do not deserve to live among us. Sexual predators/serial killers, particularly. They will tell you that if they are released from prison, they will do the same thing again.

And, not to be crass, but it just doesn't make sense to me anymore to house someone for life at such huge expense to the public which they victimized.

I do believe in redemption and I know it's hard to predict who is redeemable, but I think you get a line in the sand and once you cross that line, off you go. Rape and murder of a child, killing more than three people (that's random, but three seems right to me), spree killing, and I could go on, but I have a conference call!

This is another horrible decision to make - but if not made by people with good hearts, then it gets left up to those who are cruel or vindictive.

I feel that if the death penalty is warranted, either because the crime is so heinous that there is no chacne of rehabilitation, or because the person has no chance for rehab (such as certifiable sociopaths and pschopyths) the death penalty in these cases may be the only choice. Holding men in prison for the rest of their lives to teach them a lesson - that they will never be capapble of learning that is cruel and unusual, and bluntly - a waste of taxpayers dollors.

However executions need to be done as humanely as possible. This is what set punichment apart from vengeance. Saying a person must suffer as the victim did - that is vengeance. The olda adage goes "Put a rabid dog down - but don't tease it." I think that applies here.

Once upon a time I would have said I was against the death penalty, because there should be a way to rehabilitate all men. Then I read "Helter-Skelter" and did a research paper on the Manson Family. Charles Manson is living proof (no pun intended) that for some the death penalty would be the best way to go. Unfortunately we can only pray that we never get a judge that is insane enough to grant him parole.

When that day comes, I shudder.

Hi Deb,
Thank you for your view point. I am kind of the opposite. When I was younger, I believed in the death penalty. I grew up in a developmental country where criminals and murderers seemed to be much stronger than the police force. Many despicable crimes were committed due to greed or "the lack of" resources in a developmental country. Life was never safe... It was after an ex-military trained general came into the government and imposed death penalty to all kidnappers and robbers (they were executed within "months" vs. years in the U.S.), crime rate started to decline drastically. For a period of time, citizens actually felt relatively safe. I guess the general's way to "set an example" actually worked.

Now I am older and living in the U.S., I personally have hard time with the death penalty. I don't believe that anyone including the government has the right to take away a human life. Perhaps the best punishment is to make those criminals do very hard physical labor for the rest of his/her life. I think death might be an easy way out for some. However, I totally understand your view on the cost. Everyday a criminal stays in the prison, our tax money is used to support his/her life. In the already crowded U.S. prison systems, do we really have resources to house many hard criminals for life?

I wonder if my safer living environment now in the U.S. has changed my view on capital punishment as I never had problems with it when I was a child. Back then, survival was key. I had no sympathy for those who committed violent crimes against others.

It is a hard issue... I think besides one's spiritual or ethical beliefs, we all have to face the reality of the mind of criminals as some are truly beyond rehabilitation.

Michelle,
It is important that you pointed out if the death penalty is used, it should be done as humanely as possible. It shows that you have such kindness in your heart while facing the issue realistically.

I try to believe that all men can change either by their own will or the grace of a higher power. However, after watching some shows on serial murderers and their mind, they made me chill...

I agree with the use of humane methods for the death penalty - the electric chair was just too inhuman and bizarre and belongs in the "house of horrors" displays.

I do believe in the death penalty for murder committed in an outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible, or inhuman manner. The senseless murders of the Alday family in 1973 in Georgia called for the death penalty. Six members of a prominent, upstanding family that worked their land for five generations were brutally murdered. Of the four men involved in the crime, three were sentenced to be executed, with two of those sentences being converted to life. One man, the youngest, was sentenced to 40 years because he was the only one who did not kill anyone. Only one man received the death penalty, by lethal injection, but that was not till thirty years after the crime. For thirty years, the family of the slain suffered and went through financial crisis and emotional torment waiting to see if justice would be served. Thirty years! It took those three escaped convicts less than one hour to kill six members of a family who were just meeting at home for lunch after working in the fields.

This is just one case where victims were brutally and senselessly murdered - there are many more in our history. Anyone who can commit this type of crime deserves the death penalty.

You know Phyllis, there was a time when I felt under no circumstances should a life be taken. Even if someone were coming at me, it would be better I be killed than the other person. It wasn't my place to rub out a human life.

Now though, I feel differently. I believe if that's the way you want to roll, then it's all on you. This plane or any other. I do believe in the death penalty.

If peace type individuals have to suffer physical anguish over imputants that have no regard for life and duty, then it's only logical that those people have consequences for their choices as well. For a lot of them, it was all a game to begin with - they rolled their dice and crapped out.

__________________________

Elleise
Clairvoyance Editor

Phyllis, thank you for the example of the Alday family. It really puts things in perspective... 1 hour of brutal crime followed by 30 more years of suffering. Sigh!

My view of the death penalty is that it is simply revenge, and puts society on the same moral level as the killer.
Putting a murderer to death doesn't bring back the victim, and from what I have heard from families of victims, it does little to help their grief, only panders to a desire for revenge.
"An eye for an eye" seems a primitive sort of justice to me, surely we have evolved as a society since the days of Hammurabi?
I certainly believe of life in prison without possibility of parole for those so violent that they cannot be allowed to live among us, but I draw the line at murdering them.