Transcript
Alabama suffocated a man to death in a gas chamber tonight after starving him so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit as they did it. And this was deemed perfectly legal by multiple courts in the vaunted American legal system.
That's what happens when you value institutions over people.
Link for more info: https://www.reuters.com/legal/alabama-prepares-carry-out-first-execution-by-nitrogen-asphyxiation-2024-01-25/
The death penalty is a reason not to consider the USA a civilized country.
Among many. Extrajudicial Executions are far more common than official ones. And the police rob more money of people than all other criminals combined (excluding white collar crime, of course). So yeah, totally civilised.
And the death penalty is not legal in many states, but cops murdering people in the streets is legal in all 50.
The government regularly executes wrongly convicted people in our name. That's enough of a reason to ban the death penalty. Even if we granted that some people deserve to die, the government is going to get it wrong with some degree of regularity.
Going beyond that, the justice system should be about preventing crime, not inflicting punishment. So yes, if there's going to be a death penalty, it's right to take every possible step to make it humane.
I was not talking about this case in particular but yes, of course I do think that. The method of killing makes no difference at all and to describe a method of killing as humane means to trivialize it. There are several reasons for my position. Just a few:
The death penalty violates basic human rights.
Perpetrators who are in prison are no threat to society. That means killing them is nothing more than an unnecessary cruelty, based on a medieval understanding of the law, based on the idea of revenge.
One murder cannot make up for another murder. The victim is dead and killing the murderers will not bring her back.
Governments should not kill people and in general, killing is wrong and should be avoided. Exceptions might be very certain situations of self defense, which are rare.
In countries that still have the death penalty, it also regularly happens that innocent people are executed. In the USA for example, this happens more frequently to black people, the reason being racism in the police and justice system.
Would you still feel the same if the person being put to death was responsible for torturing and murdering your loved ones? Is it uncivilized of a government to consider the victims feelings in these kind of cases?
I was always on the fence with it, because I do agree we probably shouldn't give the government power to kill people, but when I put myself in the victim's shoes in certain cases, I completely understand the want for corporal punishment. Sometimes people do something so fucked up that it seems healthy for the community to just put them to death for it.
It's hard for me to say that the death penalty is absolutely never warranted, but I do think it should be very rare, and there should be an extra burden of proof to condemn someone.
Yes. Some of us apply our moral code universally, rather than letting our feelings decide whether killing people is okay, as long as they wronged us specifically.
Yes. Justice systems based on individuals' feelings are how witch trials work, and it's how we add more names to this list. Victims' feelings aren't evidence, and should not be considered when talking about capital punishment.
Sometimes, the person that you're 100% certain committed the crime actually didn't. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if there was even a sliver of a doubt that we didn't get the right person. How can I ever know for certain? Even eyewitness testimony is often flawed. Did I see that guy, or did I see someone who looked just like him? I've seen my own doppelganger in my city, I know better than to think I can flawlessly identify someone 100% of the time. They confessed? That's compelling evidence, but again, I know full well that police can coerce confessions. If they maintain that they did it and they don't feel sorry right up until they die, then maybe I won't feel bad if my testimony gets someone killed, but otherwise life in prison is an equally effective punishment, with the added bonus that if we were wrong, we can release them and try to find the real perpetrator.
No, since I am not mentally developed enough, I could not be rational but would instead be driven by feelings of hate and revenge, which is exactly the reason why verdicts in murder cases must not be based on the feelings of the relatives of the victim.
Understanding such feelings is trivial. However, satisfying the victim's family's need for punishment on one hand and justice on the other hand are two very different things. The concept of "an eye for an eye" dates back to antiquity and has long been outdated.
I disagree. In any justice system, no matter how thorough, mistakes and false convictions happen. Also, societies always run the risk of slipping into authoritarianism and using the death penalty to eliminate opposition. See my comment above for more even reasons, they all apply.
Yes, the government killing their own citizens is uncivilized, no matter what they've done. Some people may deserve it, sure, but the government does NOT deserve the power to do it, period.
But are you sure they committed those despicable heinous crimes?
Like 100% sure?
Or will you be killing an innocent?
I think this is an unnecessary complication. Let's assume we do know 100% they actually did. I believe the other commenter would still believe it is wrong for the government to kill them.
On the one hand, many people who oppose the death penalty, myself included, agree that even in a situation where we know that a person committed a crime with the kind of absolute certainty that's only possible in thought experiments, we would still oppose the death penalty.
On the other hand, it's not an unnecessary complication, because that's one thing that sways some people to this side of the debate–we don't live in a thought experiment, so we can never be absolutely certain that the person being killed actually committed the crime they're accused of. We can come pretty damn close–I challenge you to find someone who believe Dennis Rader or Darrell Brooks is innocent–but as long as we're executing them, we'll be executing Cameron Todd Willinghams and Walter Bartons and Carlton Micheal Garys. It just isn't worth it. Let them rot in prison, and if evidence comes out that they didn't actually commit the crime, release them.
Yes. The depravity of another does not suddenly make it ethical to be shitty. It is only when that shittiness is necessary to prevent further harm and these people are relatively simple to contain. If we had some sort of fucked up super villain scenario where you can't even contain the person, then it becomes ethical to consider killing them but otherwise it is just the state and it's population committing a murder for the sake of it. For a show.
Literal whataboutism:
What about Japan?
Cause people apparently need help:
Japan is generally perceived as more advanced on a variety of issues, but has recently been in the news regarding an execution. It's for that reason I asked about Japan.
I asked about another country to learn about the speaker's perspective, was it specific to the issue, or some other factor. They replied.
What about it? Capital punishment is wrong, no matter what country.
Literal whataboutism..
What about this other country? Hmmmmm?
Do you believe Japan is a civilized country
Not in the law department, just like any country that still has the death penalty. Especially because the Japanese prison system is based on the idea of punishment, not rehabilitation.
If they have the death penalty: no
What's with this stupid trend of taking what someone says about one thing, applying it to a different thing, and acting like they're contradicting themselves? For fucks sakes, assume the person you're talking to has consistent views. If they say that the death penalty is a solid reason not to consider the US civilized, then it stands to reason that they would feel the same way about Japan, or the United Arab Emirates, or Qatar, or any of the other 50ish countries that still kill people as punishment. What about what they said would imply otherwise???
It's not a trend. I wondered if their opinion was more about America, or a very different country, or a topic like the death penalty. It's a common conversational pattern with which to highlight the core views of the speaker and identify if those views are tied to the subject (america) or the topic (death penalty.) Japan is generally seen as superior on many topics, but recently was in the news for ruling on an execution, hence was the example I raised.
They replied that they think Japan is the same, are thus logically consistent, and I was satisfied.
If they had said Japan IS civilized, even though they too have execution, that would be logically inconsistent and problematic.