The death penalty is a barbaric institution. It always has been, and it always will be. The government says it’s okay to murder this person, so let’s murder him.
I don’t get why that doesn’t shock people’s consciences and sense of basic decency.
I think it's that guys like this one aren't a hill anyone is eager to die on. Like, it's bad, but let's not make this guy the poster boy for ending the practice. There are other cases I'm much happier to cite in arguments opposing the death penalty.
Even a single innocent person getting murdered by the state makes the practice barbaric. The state is imperfect. It should not have a license to murder.
I have a friend who went to protest outside the federal prison when Timothy McVeigh was executed. He had no love for McVeigh. He thought McVeigh was a monster. That wasn't the point. The point was that capital punishment is always wrong. The state should not have the power of life and death over its citizenry.
And I have great respect for him for doing so. Protesting capital punishment in cases like this are just as important as in lesser cases because the reason for the punishment isn't at issue.
I’ll be glad when death penalty is abolished. But we’ve still got time till then, and this guy live streaming himself doing the murders doesn’t leave much in the way of wiggle room for innocence.
Gonna be tragic when we learn it was secretly racist nano robots controlling his whole body by time traveling confederates.
I used to be against the death penalty. Read an article once about why it's racist. Don't remember them saying why it was racist but eventually they got to what the guy had done. He cut open a pregnant woman to steal her baby for his junkie girlfriend. I have been pro death penalty ever since.
It may be barbaric, and considering how many innocents have been railroaded into it via abuse or neglect of justice, ethically untenable on the face of it.
That said, I feel there are certain people who's actions are so horrific and ideologies so dangerous that should not be allowed to harm society again, and that includes having to pay for their upkeep.
There are many worthy of execution that have been released to kill again.
In our imperfect world it is not right to levy a judgment that cannot be reversed.
If we magically had perfect knowledge of guilt and innocence, I would have zero issue with the death penalty being applied.
Since that world does not, and cannot exist, I will accept life imprisonment, grudgingly. Some people simply cannot or will not be rehabilitated.
You're implying that human beings have intrinsic worth. They don't. Human life has no value, and humans are trash. They're all garbage. Barbaric? You're talking about slavers, murderers, rapists. Humans are inherently flawed and earth would be better off without them.
I don't disagree, but also I think the death penalty is too merciful. This guy should live forever, watching the world go by without him or his ignorance. He should be forced to watch home movies and social media from the families of the people he killed. Watch them mourn, and how they find hope and love in a world where he also exists.
He should live long enough to learn that his life is meaningless, his actions, while extremely harmful, will be forgotten to history as just another violent, murderous bigot. He should realize that from inside a 10x10 room, and then he should live another 50 years with that knowledge.
The state shouldn't kill people at all. It isn't a deterrent, it doesn't cost less money, it doesn't increase justice, and sometimes we get it wrong. There isn't a good reason for the death penalty to exist, and plenty of reasons it shouldn't.
Hmm, I am not sure torture is the point of a justice or legal system. We have the death penalty as a deterrent for violent crime, it’s not meant to be punishment. That said, even the punishment isn’t meant to be torture. You shouldn’t become the cruelty you aim to reduce in society.
getting killed because of your skin tone when going to shop at the grocery store is barbaric. i'm not trying to throw a zinger here, but we have to strongly address both sides of the situation.
The only issue with the death penalty is the potential to execute the innocent. There is no danger of that here. I don’t want to share the planet with this racist prick.
I don’t think it’s barbaric at all. Hell, if anything, making people care for this asshole for 50+ years is barbaric. There is no rehabilitation for this guy. There is no way he becomes a productive member of society.
The other issue is that it quite frequently costs exponentially more to administer the death penalty due to years of appeals. I'm not sure how that would work in this case, since as you said, it's apparent that the defendant is guilty.
His appeals will be focused on procedure, rather than facts. Pretty much the go-to defense strategy when a suspect is caught red handed. If you can’t argue the facts of the case, try to get the facts thrown out on technicality (like maybe the police mishandled evidence so it’s not admissible anymore,) or try to minimize the person’s crime as much as possible. Try to get the sentence reduced, try to downplay the convict’s actions, emphasize how much they have changed, etc…
Basically just damage control. Accept that you aren’t going to come out of it unscathed, so just work to mitigate the damage instead of trying to avoid it altogether.
Which is why you execute them immediately, not 20-30 years later. I don't want to hear about innocent people in jail that long, I don't even want to hear about guilty people in jail very long. Just kill em and move on regardless, it's really less cruel.
I don't even kill spiders. It's hard to look at that photo and understand, how this young adult even considered doing this. What broke him like that? Maybe, instead of killing him, we can somehow guarantee no new guys like him would happen. Not in a genetic crime bullshit fashion, but in providing psychological services, making regular checks, noticing them and reaching out before they act like that? He's a fucking idiot, but also a guy that fell through many safety nets proving them ineffective.
I seen some doc about some ultra tough texan prison guy. He was all "We need to punish people and my prison the best because we break our prisoners and make them behave perfectly and control everything they can do so they do no wrong. Then finally after decades of doing that we release then into the public all fixed"
So the doc was about him going to Norway where they live on this island and have a room and "freedom" to wander around. They just have to be at certain places at certain times and can't do lots of stuff. He gets on the ferry and the guy running the ferry is a prisoner in a paid job. He tells him he tried to get that job because that's the easiest way to escape. But then he laughed and told him he was joking.
The whole time this texan is just confused that a prison like that has better rehabilitation and lower repeated criminals than his prison
People who feel like they have nothing to live for often take their frustration out on others.
It's like they know their lives suck and likely won't get better, so they focus on making other people's lives worse because it's literally all they feel they can do.
Also experimental. No one wants to make the drugs used to end life so states are buying expired product and shady drugs from Indian compound pharmacies.
Just make sure to place him in a cell near/with black prisoners and give him a sandwich board like one from die hard 3 with "I hate n*****" on it too.b
The suffering should never be the point. It never gives meaningful satisfaction to the bereaved and affected and studies support this.
It is only human and normal to burn with anger and a desire to see monsters such as this torn apart and made to suffer.
This is part of our animal mind that views tribal justice and the dubious 'wisdom of the crowds' as absolute, and most of the fuckdamn reason we've spent so long learning how to live around millions of each other is in part giving up these outdated and unhelpful social traits.
In the long run, from the cultural perspective, no amount of his suffering will bring his victims back, and no amount of suffering will convince him that he was morally wrong.
So execute him, and quickly, and spend the money otherwise that would have covered his upkeep on free food for single parents.
You were so close! The first four paragraphs were a perfect argument against the death penalty. And then you somehow turned around to argue for it in the last one?
The logical conclusion from your argument isn’t a quick death, it’s trying to reform offenders, no matter how heinous their crimes. If that’s not possible, keep them locked away, but treat them humanely and keep trying.
The reactionary in me thinks "life in solidarity confinement without the chance of parole."
The me in me says he needs a long time in some sort of rehabilitation program. As much of a monster as he is, he's a bit of a victim. May he be studied so that we can pinpoint and prevent others from following his path.
They are so much better at this stuff in other developed countries. The US prison system is all about punishment where others focus a lot more on rehabilitation and prevention.
(Not so) fun fact: The US has 5 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's prison population.
Guy kills ten black people and Lemmy comments are all 'yeah but death sentence and prison are wrong, maybe we should get him a nice job and somewhere to live, I'll pop round to massage his feet once a week...'
Maybe the death sentence would be the better option than prison. Not like we are on par with other peers with prisons. Either way I could care less about this one specific case.
And will that help reduce violent deaths at all in the future? A large number of shooters are just out to commit a mass murder-suicide. Who does this serve justice to? Or is this just to get people feeling like they've been "avenged"?
I know it's a cliche, but it is a bit dumb to kill someone to show that killing is wrong.
Why waste resources on one who has proven themselves to be the worst kind of man? He won't learn a lesson. He doesn't deserve an opportunity to ever rejoin society. Your suggestion is to house, feed and provide medicine for this monster for the rest of his life. To give him what millions of Americans can not obtain. You want to reward his actions.
The death penalty is not revenge. It's not a lesson.It should not be seen as some deterrent. It's culling a sick animal so it can't do any more harm to the rest of the population. It can be done quickly, humanely, and even cleanly though the cheapest method would make a small, containable mess.
I don't necessarily disagree with the reasons behind your conclusion, but it costs more to execute a prisoner than to house them for life. The nature of the death penalty means that every appeal must be heard and fought through, which is one reason why it takes so long to kill them after conviction. All of those people involved in that process are thus being dragged away from other things they could be doing.
About the only time an execution occurs quickly is if the individual decides not to appeal. Rare, understandably. The other option would be to ignore the appeals process, and frankly we have already executed too many innocents for any person, even those who believe in the death penalty, to believe that would be justice.
Do you think it's a waste of resources to even give him a trial? Death penalty trials are long and expensive and often cost more than lifelong incarceration. You might be okay with a low bar for having the government remove someone from society but I think the bar should be high, and the decision shouldn't be done lightly. However, keeping that bar high also takes more resources so the issue isn't as easy as you make it out to be.
Americans not being able to obtain housing and the rising homelessness does not mean we should employ capital punishment, which is an expensive and inhumane procedure where there is a chance to take away the life of those potentially innocent, not to mention that it doesn't actually reduce or deter crime. In fact, it seems that places with more capital punishment have more violent crime.
Yes, because he's a fascist actively helping his cult to take over the country and can only be stopped with violence.
No one wants him dead to prove all killing is wrong, they want him dead because he is genocidal and a threat to the existence of everyone else. Don't you bother trying to understand how other people think and feel, or do you think your arrogance and unwarranted sense of superiority over your opponents is what empathy is?
What is a justified consequence for someone that killed people just going about their normal lives? Do the families impacted by this tragedy have any input?
I'd really like for us to move towards a restorative justice system instead of the punitive one we use now. In my mind, that would look something
Seeking input from the people who were impacted by the crime about what would help them move past or recover from the crime.
Separating the perpetrator from society at large while providing the resources to prepare them to reenter society when they no longer pose a threat.
Even those perpetrators who could never be reintroduced to society safely still be treated humanely and with respect.
I can't remember which off the top of my head, but there's a country (Scandinavian if my memory is accurate) that provides prisoners with small homes (still within the confines of a prison-like facility that separates them from society at large) which they have to take care of. I believe they even have jobs that let them contribute to society, and they receive counseling and all that as well. When they're eventually released, they know how to maintain a home, keep a job, etc, so they're well-prepared to reintegrate with society.
Out of pure academic curiosity, how is the death penalty part of this under federal jurisdiction?
The article refers to federal hate crimes.
There are federal crimes that include hate crimes and violation of civil rights, but from what I can tell in the list of federal capital crimes, neither of those appears to me to qualify as subject to the death penalty.
I looked up Derek Chauvin as a base then realized he was never under threat of death penalty.
The only danger that creeps in here is 'who gets to decide who is useless and dangerous?' because I wear glasses and don't feel like being on the receiving end of a Khmer Rouge style microcide.
Yes they do, because they value protecting their people over appeasing your sensibilities.
And don't even bother wasting time arguing with me; I already know exactly what you're going to do -- you're going to bitch to the high heavens with talking point after talking point after talking point, and you're going to do this because you don't care about anything other than the way articles like this make you feel. You're just going to be irrational and not listen, so don't bother.