Death Penalty

It isn't outlawed everywhere. I'm pretty sure DP is still instituted in most of the US.

I see it good to some but harsh on others.
If you ahve done something that is very disgraceful and shamful, then you deserve it. If you are a serial killer then i suppose they deserve to be killed. Surely if someone kills ten people that are loved and have families to care for then they should also get punished for their sins.
Though i don't think if you kill one person the death penalty should come into place as then you can have a second chance at life afterwards. But serial killers are given a second chance (sort of) after killing the first person but if they don't learn how bad that is and continue on killing then they deserve a harsh punishment.

So what you're saying is, it's okay to kill one person?

I'm extremely tired right now, but the new Lincoln-Douglas debate topic is:
"A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment."

I was an instructor for a debate camp just a few weeks ago, and the concentration was on that resolution so the students attending would be prepared for September/October tournaments.

Expect a lot from me about this topic (and you know that when I say a lot, it means a lot).

Double post, but I don't really care because the topics are completely different from what my previous post was.

Here are some cases that I wrote when I had to perform a demonstration debate for the camp I instructed at. In case people don't want to read the previous post I made, the resolution is: "A just society ought not use the death penalty as a form of punishment." For you dummies out there, it means that if you affirm the statement, you don't support the death penalty, and if you negate the statement, you do. Probably not what most of you are used to- The format is a pretty different from what you'd expect in one of my usual posts.

Why the death penalty is good:
[size=8]I value a just society, one that gives their members their due.

In order to achieve justice, societies establish legal systems. The fundamental question in the resolution is what type of punishment is deserved, and how that would be reflected in the society?s legal system. In order to assess the implications of the death penalty, I uphold Immanuel Kant?s philosophy of the categorical imperative regarding the death penalty.

According to Kant, ?Juridical punishment can never be administered merely as a means for promoting another good either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime [?] The penal law is a categorical imperative; and woe to him who creeps through the serpent-windings of utilitarianism to discover some advantage that may discharge him from the justice of punishment, or even from the due measure of it. It is better that one man should die than that the whole people should perish. For if justice and righteousness perish, human life would no longer have any value in the world [?] But what is the mode and measure of punishment which public justice takes as its principle and standard? It is just the principle of equality [?] If you slander another, you slander yourself; if you steal from another, you steal from yourself; if you strike another, you strike yourself; if you kill another, you kill yourself. This is the right of retaliation (jus talionis); and, properly understood, it is the only principle that in regulating a public court, as distinguished from mere private judgement, can definitely assign both the quality and the quantity of a just penalty. All other standards are wavering and uncertain; and on account of other considerations involved in them, they contain no principle conformable to the sentence of pure and strict justice??

Therefore, the standard of the categorical imperative ought to be preferred for three reasons:

1. It is the only way to administer punishment objectively. All other standards are wavering and uncertain.
2. Since the punishment is objective, the legal system is free of human bias. _______?s affirmative case is based on the fact that because the legal system is flawed, we can?t depend on it when life is at hand. Use of the categorical imperative takes that out of the question, and you would negate based on this, because I uphold my own value, and meet his/her criterion better than he/she does.
3. Categorizing actions results in a definitive system of laws. If your action and motivation for that action are done unto everyone, you can determine whether or not an action is unjust. Again, I better meet my opponent?s criterion in this sense as well, giving you more reason to negate.

My sole argument is that the categorical imperative condemns murderers to the death penalty. First, categorizing the act of intentional killing (i.e. intentionally murdering everyone in society) violates the principles of justice; it does not give people their due. Therefore, people who intentionally kill others, ought to have their action universalized unto themselves. Second, Immanual Kant offered an alternative retributive justification of capital punishment which is not rooted in vengeance. Instead, according to James Fiesher, ?for Kant, capital punishment is based on the idea that every person is a valuable and worthy of respect because of their ability to make rational and free choices. The murder, too, is worthy of respect; we, thus, show him respect by treating him the same way he declares that people are to be treated. Accordingly, we execute the murderer.?

Kant absolutely insists on capital punishment of murderers. According to Kant "whoever has committed murder, must die" (Kant, translated 1996), because no matter how difficult life might be, it is still better than death: "However many they may be who have committed a murder, or have even commanded it, or acted as art and part in it, they ought all to suffer death" (Kant, translated 1996). A court decision is mandatory for punishing a murderer. A society that does not sentence a murderer to death turns into an accomplice of this crime. Because Immanuel Kant?s philosophy of the categorical imperative eliminates subjectivity in cases involving the death penalty, I agree and thus negate the resolution.
[/size]

Another one:
I value a just society that strives to be just. Ought is desirable.

My burden is to prove the use of the death penalty is just ?as a form? of punishment, meaning that I only have to prove why we need to reserve it as an option. This is clearly stated in the resolution and is a reasonable interpretation because it wouldn?t make sense to use the death penalty for every crime.

The standard is stopping especially dangerous criminals.

A basic tenet of any justice system is to stop criminals from harming members of society. A primary duty is to stop the most dangerous criminals first, because the harm they inflict is inherently worse.

Also, if these super-killers are loose everyone?s at risk for bombings, shootings, and other massacres. People can?t get their due if they are dead, so this precludes the affirmative standard they have to ensure atrocities will never happen before they can achieve justice.

The thesis is that the death penalty is the only means of protecting people from dangerous inmates. Even the most vicious killers, once imprisoned, will have immunity in prison, because it is the worst punishment they can receive. They are encouraged to take out their anger and brutality on other inmates and guards ? they completely lack a disincentive to do whatever they want. Violent acts take many forms, one of which is brutal rape. Christopher Man writes:

Inmates convicted of more serious offenses, such as those serving life sentences tend to take the role of the aggressor in prisoner rape. 68% of the aggressors in a recent study were prisoners convicted of violent crimes who had to endure harsher sentences, thereby making these inmates much more willing to take the risks involved in turning an inmate into a ?punk? for his own use because his violent acts are unchecked.

Forecasting Sexual Abuse in Prison: The Prison Subculture of Masculinity as a Backdrop for "Deliberate Indifference", by Christopher D. Man; John P. Cronan The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-) � 2001 Northwestern University

The impact is that dangerous killers have free reign in the prison society. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners across the country are potential victims of repeatable and brutal physical violence and rape, and the undeniable possibility of murder.

Next, the only punishment a prison can exact is solitary confinement. But this would only increase the problem because it would give the killer A) more of an incentive to inflict harm and B) time alone to manifest his anger toward violence. So confining the killer increases the likelihood of an attack, and letting him into the open provides no check against it.

Next, there is zero recourse against a serious-enough killer determined to inflict harm on those around him. If the terminal state of punishment is not death, rape, violence, and murder are made permissible by the state.

The only just recourse is death, because it will stop 100% of these unchecked brutal attacks, deter all future attackers, and spare potentially hundreds of inmates and guards from life-threatening violence. This outweighs any affirmative arguments because as we don?t know all possible situations to come, we have to assume that they are more serious than harms we can identify in the status quo, because an open mind and a full arsenal are necessary preparation for undefined threats.


I'll post a few more some time.

« Last edited by Simple Theory on Aug 30th 2007 »

On 29-Aug-2007 Pandaemonium said:

So what you're saying is, it's okay to kill one person?

No, I suppose that's the way it came out but I didn't mean it that way. I am saying that people who do only commit one murder have a long time to in jail to think about what they've done and how bad it is. Usually people who commit murder are punished but I don't think they desreve the death penalty for it. They do their time and have so much time to think about it that they will eventually give in. But people who do commit multiple murders do deserve death penalty because they have commited too many murders to be accounted for in jail.

I'm obviously not equipped with sufficient knowledge to debate against that wall of text... but I did manage to digest it, albeit indigestion in terms of comprehension...

The main problems I see with that: it's easy to be objective when you somehow miraculously know for a fact that the offender is a murderer, but the controversy of the death penalty kicks in when you considering those who are wrongly accused.

When someone is wrongly accused it is not because the Death Penalty is at fault, it is because we, as people, are at fault.

Investigators merely follow the evidence laid out for them and try to reach the most accurate solution. The solution, being the murderer or criminal in question.

The Death Penalty applies to those who are the results of said conclusions and have comitted a crime the reaches a certain level of gravity. Only if we perfect our justice system and can be sure that every person sentenced to death is truly guilty, can the death penalty be fair.

Unfortunately, our systems are not perfect, and we cannot catch those responsable every time a crime is comitted. And so, in my opinion, the death penalty should be removed from anywhere the permits it as a way of punishment.

On 01-Sep-2007 Cataclysm said:

When someone is wrongly accused it is not because the Death Penalty is at fault, it is because we, as people, are at fault.

Investigators merely follow the evidence laid out for them and try to reach the most accurate solution. The solution, being the murderer or criminal in question.

The Death Penalty applies to those who are the results of said conclusions and have comitted a crime the reaches a certain level of gravity. Only if we perfect our justice system and can be sure that every person sentenced to death is truly guilty, can the death penalty be fair.

Unfortunately, our systems are not perfect, and we cannot catch those responsable every time a crime is comitted. And so, in my opinion, the death penalty should be removed from anywhere the permits it as a way of punishment.

A very good point, but some might argue that, although a tragedy if an innocent is wrongly executed if it means that a serial killer is executed then many more innocent people will be saved so it is the lesser of 2 evils. Not my view but I have heard the arguement used.

Means-based philosophies don't always guarantee the ends they're aiming for.

I'm with Simple Theory and Pandaemonium on this arguement. They've said everything I wanted to say.

Personally, I think the British Government has gone way too soft. Ever since I was a kid, I've always thought things weren't strict enough.

Beatings and violence being used to straighten people out, I agree with. But I don't believe in going as far as death in any case. In my opinion, the end does not justify the means. Instead of trying to have our prisons emptied and letting people out on the streets though, we should be attemting to improve our justice system because killing is wrong, as is letting criminals out on the streets. If we can find a way to only catch and imprison those that are guilty, then there will be no need for the death penalty, or early releases.

On 03-Sep-2007 Cataclysm said:

Beatings and violence being used to straighten people out, I agree with. But I don't believe in going as far as death in any case. In my opinion, the end does not justify the means. Instead of trying to have our prisons emptied and letting people out on the streets though, we should be attemting to improve our justice system because killing is wrong, as is letting criminals out on the streets. If we can find a way to only catch and imprison those that are guilty, then there will be no need for the death penalty, or early releases.

Even if people are found guilty there would always be early releases just because there will always be loopholes.

I'd prefer the death penatly to the beatings and violence idea, no though many would deserve it but it seems more humane to me to be killed quickly and painlessly as opposed to been beaten, which as far as I can see is little more than torture.

« Last edited by super craig on Sep 3rd 2007 »

OK so evryone that opposes the DP.

So you think Sadame Hussien should have been allowed to live? Do you know how many people he killed?

That's the weakest argument yet: simply being put to death doesn't right any wrongs. There wasn't any need for him to be put to death after he was in captivity either.

Political examples should be excluded as they're too intangible for a debate of such minor magnitude; we're discussing the validity of capitol punishment as a judicial system among criminals, not debating whether Saddam should have been put to death.

I'd like you to point out what part of Saddam's sentence you found to be just, as I found very little.

Also, as a side note, "how many people he killed" is largely invalid; you'd think killing many people would warrant the death of the person responsible... yet considering the nature and intention of the act, one could argue otherwise. President Truman was personally responsible for the approximate 150,000 civilian deaths during world war II, yet he was heralded for bringing a swift end to the war... or perhaps not, but he was least regarded as a criminal, but one who made a correct choice in ending the lives of civilians.

I am in favor of death penalty because someone who is ready to kill others I also beleive is ready to kill himself.Either life in prison or death.Witchever the person fears most.

On 18-Sep-2007 qwertyuio said:

I am in favor of death penalty because someone who is ready to kill others I also beleive is ready to kill himself.Either life in prison or death.Witchever the person fears most.

Do you mean ready to be killed himself, or actually commit suicide? Sorry about this but its just a bit confusing. As for the fear thing it all depends on whether or not you think they deserve it. I don't mean like they shouldn't be punished but to the levels to which you will go in order to carry that out, for example giving them whichever they fear the most is torture is it not? Now would you say that this is no less than what they should get or would you class that as sinking to thier level.

I have mixed feelings about the death penalty.I think that they should have a some kinda system to where if you kill 1 person you get life in prison.Get more than one you get death penalty.Say get more than 5 get a harsh death penalty.
Almost like the first line of SCUM_OF_THE_EARTH's reply

How do you get a harsh death penalty? IS that like ninety chops to the neck with a blunt axe?

Fwank: I found Saddam being put to death to be very just. Yes the amount of people he killed might be exaggerated. From mine and most if not all of America's point of veiw, he was evil. Even a lot of the people in Iraq though he was evil. Some of them thought he could have been an angel for all I know. I just think that for what he did he should have died. Don't know anything else I can say there.

Anyway. I believe that one murder warrants a life in prison without parrol. This does not include self defense, if your life was in danger you should get off the hook. IF you killed two or more people intentionally you should die. Especially those that kill for the fun of it.

On 20-Sep-2007 norbie007 said:

How do you get a harsh death penalty? IS that like ninety chops to the neck with a blunt axe?

Fwank: I found Saddam being put to death to be very just. Yes the amount of people he killed might be exaggerated. From mine and most if not all of America's point of veiw, he was evil. Even a lot of the people in Iraq though he was evil. Some of them thought he could have been an angel for all I know. I just think that for what he did he should have died. Don't know anything else I can say there.

Anyway. I believe that one murder warrants a life in prison without parrol. This does not include self defense, if your life was in danger you should get off the hook. IF you killed two or more people intentionally you should die. Especially those that kill for the fun of it.

I would define harsh as slow and VERY painful.