Do you agree with the death penalty under ANY circumstances in the United States? Do you agree with

[Douglas Carpenter]

life in prison at hard labor under harsh conditions without ANY CHANCE of parole EVER?

23 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I agree with the death penalty for extreme heinous crimes and also agree with a punishment of life in prison at hard labor under harsh conditions without any chance of parole ever for certain heinous crimes.
	4 (17%)
	I agree with the death penalty for extreme heinous crimes - but don't agree with a punishment of life in prison at hard labor under harsh conditions without any chance of parole ever for certain crimes.
	1 (4%)
	I don't agree with the dealt penalty under any circumstances in the United States. But I do agree that extreme heinous crimes could be punished with life in prison at hard labor under harsh conditions without any chance of parole ever.
	1 (4%)
	I don't agree with the death penalty in the United States under any circumstances. Nor do I agree with a punishment of life in prison at hard labor under harsh conditions. But I do agree under some circumstances of life in prison without any chance of parole under ordinary American prison conditions.
	2 (9%)
	I don't agree with the death penalty in the United States under any circumstances. Nor do I agree with a punishment of life in prison at hard labor under harsh conditions or the kind of prison conditions that currently exist in most prisons in America. But I do agree under some circumstances of life in prison without any chance of parole under more humane prison conditions.
	12 (52%)
	I don't agree with the death penalty in the United States under any circumstances. Nor do I agree with life in prison without any chance of parole ever. I believe the possibility of eventual redemptions and return to society should at least be left open as at least a possibility under all circumstances.
	3 (13%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[RandiFan1290]

1. I look to Norway

Where they treat all of their citizens like human beings.

Yes, even Anders Breivik

[avebury]

8. You beat me to it.

Norway does not even have life without parole and somehow they don't seem to have the crime problems that exist in the US. It is a difference in culture. The US is becoming more of a police state, private prisons is a growth industry and we don't care about people. Countries like Norway look at everyone being on an equal footing and they have better systems of education, health care, etc. It is wonderful how a country can develop when they don't have an obsessive gun culture and don't allow the needs and desires of the few out weigh the needs and desires of the many.

[cali]

2. I voted for the 4th option. I'm pretty distressed by ther vengeance fantasies

that are being expressed here.

[Kaleva]

7. And juries are inconsistant in hiding prison rape and prison justice posts.

[B Calm]

3. I'm reminded of all the death row inmates released in Illinois.

That's why I chose option 4.

[politicman]

4. No death penalty because it can't be applied consistently to every heinous crime

Like I said in another thread, their is no way to adequately make the death penalty fair to all the people that commit heinous crimes, so I am against it.

You could have 2 extremely heinous cases before 2 different juries, one jury could be staffed with people who get emotional when hearing the facts of a case and thus grant the death penalty, whilst the other jury could be staffed with people who are able to compose their emotions and not grant the death penalty.

Result is that one convicted killer gets executed, and the other lives.

So the question is why one deserved to lose his life, while the other was spared his. If the state is going to take someone's life, then they have to at least be consistent in which crimes deserve it and there is no way the state can do that when juries made up of different people decide the fate of a convicted killer/s.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

5. 5: "We might well kill you if we were sure we hadn't made a mistake, but we're not".

If the death penalty were reversible if it turned out we'd made a mistake, I think that on balance I'd support it.

But I'm not willing to risk taking the risk of executing innocents when there are perfectly good prisons.

For the most heinous crimes, the sentence should be

1) If we were certain we hadn't made a mistake, we might well execute you.
2) But sometimes we get it wrong, so we're going to imprison you for life, and give you the right to appeal every so often, especially if new evidence comes to light.
3) But unless it turns out that we were wrong about what you did, or you can convince an appeal court that we were wrong in sentencing you, then you do not deserve ever to come out of jail again, and will die there".


I think that opposition to the death penalty is a no-brainer. But if it could be administered infallibly by angels, or even if it were reversible, it would be a serious moral dilemma.


American jail conditions are another matter: they're inexcusable, and need to be improved. So 5, rather than 4, but failing that 4 is the least worst option.

[PotatoChip]

6. It is mind boggling to me that 32 states still have a death penalty. (nt)

[avebury]

9. The main reason I can never support the

death penalty is the fact that, once executed, should the prisoner later deemed to have been innocent, he is still just as dead. You cannot unring that bell if you make a mistake.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia set off a firestorm last summer when he wrote a dissent — joined by Justice Clarence Thomas — that the highest court in the land is not necessarily concerned with whether a person facing execution had actually committed the crime. The court "has never held," Justice Scalia wrote, "that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a ... court that he is 'actually innocent.'" Scalia was taking issue with the court's ruling that a lower court give Georgia death-row inmate Troy Davis a new hearing.

This idea that the Constitution allows innocent people to be put to death should be abhorrent to anyone who cares about justice. As Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz pointed out, Justice Scalia seemed to be saying that if a man was convicted of murdering his wife and then showed up in court with the wife, who was still alive, seeking a new trial, it should not matter. As long as the man's conviction was procedurally proper, Justice Scalia apparently believes, he should still be executed.

Read more: Supreme Court Tackles Death Penalty in Hank Skinner Case - TIME http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1991827,00.html#ixzz2qkXXdkp4

[Recursion]

10. Only under the UCMJ

Shirking, malingering, or mutiny under fire are the only circumstances I believe in the death penalty. It should not be part of the civilian justice system.

Life without parole is an odd claim at precognition. I don't think any court can determine that a given person has no chance of future redemption.

[HereSince1628]

11. Yes ! And randomly killing platoons from units that lose battles!!!!

We should assign zamplolits who can take notes on such lack of faith so that fair trials can be conducted.

Just like Stalin!

It's been WAY TOO LONG since the lesson of Eddie Slovik

[Douglas Carpenter]

12. more resutls?

[Nye Bevan]

13. "Hard labor" for me evokes the Nazi "work camps"

which effectively imposed slow death sentences on those whose bodies could not stand up to the labor required. I would abolish the death penalty under all circumstances and impose prison sentences to be served in safe, humane conditions, including life without parole for the worst offenders.

[surrealAmerican]

16. We have our own history to look at ...

... when we're talking about "hard labor" - think chain gangs. There's no particular need to invoke nazis. Our system of hard labor was brutal and extremely prone to abuse.

[Douglas Carpenter]

14. will try again

[Helen Highwater]

15. I voted for your first choice because I was assuming the accused had confessed.

It is the ultimate deterrent to that person. I'm less certain for those cases where the accused strongly and consistently denies guilt (but I'm not inclined to accept them as truth usually)

[markpkessinger]

17. I voted for option #5 . . .

. . .and congratulations, btw, on writing one of the better constructed polls I have seen on DU!

[NightWatcher]

18. the ONLY good thing about capital punishment is

using the threat of it to get someone who is guilty to admit to the crime and accept life in prison as an alternative, without a long costly trial where the State might screw up a case and allow the guilty to walk free.

I do know that in that case it could also be used to pressure the innocent into accepting guilt, but I would hope that they could work for years while incarcerated to fight for their freedom.

[Douglas Carpenter]

19. anther try for results?

[PowerToThePeople]

20. How should GWB and Cheney be punished for orchestrating mass murder of 100+ thousand?

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/