The death penalty

[Alyakia]

If only there was someway to stop murderers from killing more people... Without the death penalty... Alas...

i'm sorry i gave up hope once you talked about how preventing cruel and unusual punishment and preventing prisons turning into jungles is immoral

It is immoral when you allow your own civilians who have committed no act of violence to be subject to far worse cruelty. You disgust me at your indifference with regard to those victims.

Do you know what the word "allow" means?

[Horsefish]

It is immoral when you allow your own civilians who have committed no act of violence to be subject to far worse cruelty. You disgust me at your indifference with regard to those victims.

Because turning prisons into hell-holes and allowing torture totally brings back the victim and totally isn't human rights abuse and a step backward in terms of social progresssion

[Crystal Spires]

It is immoral when you allow your own civilians who have committed no act of violence to be subject to far worse cruelty. You disgust me at your indifference with regard to those victims.

Do you know what the word "allow" means?

Permit, which is what you do.

[Crystal Spires]

It is immoral when you allow your own civilians who have committed no act of violence to be subject to far worse cruelty. You disgust me at your indifference with regard to those victims.

Because turning prisons into hell-holes and allowing torture totally brings back the victim and totally isn't human rights abuse and a step backward in terms of social progresssion

No simply keeping executions is. And you don't know what "social progression" is if you think it is social progression to treat a criminal like a victim. It is not social progression, it is backwards because they made a conscious choice to break the law.

[Alyakia]

Do you know what the word "allow" means?

Permit, which is what you do.

Except there is no permitting allowed.

Do you not understand the difference between a small building where people live in cells and their movement is completely controlled and a gigantic country where people are free to go pretty much wherever they want when they want? Do you really think there are people sitting around thinkig "Hmm, I'm going to let the fitlthy criminal scum kill 50 people today!"?

[Alyakia]

Because turning prisons into hell-holes and allowing torture totally brings back the victim and totally isn't human rights abuse and a step backward in terms of social progresssion

No simply keeping executions is. And you don't know what "social progression" is if you think it is social progression to treat a criminal like a victim. It is not social progression, it is backwards because they made a conscious choice to break the law.

Hey! Maybe we should put the victims in the jury!

Avoiding the murky areas of conscious choice to break the law, you realize that isn't some wildcard that lets you treat people like animals and torture them, right?

[Nuvalia]

Even though life flourishes on our planet, we have no clue if it may exist other where in our universe. So we do our best to preserve it. So Imperial Decree-ID0038 has forbidden the death penalty only for the highest crimes to be committed in Nuvalia Treason, and Homicide.

[Crystal Spires]

Hey! Maybe we should put the victims in the jury!

Avoiding the murky areas of conscious choice to break the law, you realize that isn't some wildcard that lets you treat people like animals and torture them, right?

They are to be treated as enemies of the state, and however your populace believes an enemy of state should be treated, that is how you treat criminals. If you populace believes that they should be treated respectably and amicably held, then that should be done, if your populace believes they should be cruelly executed, that should be done. It's a matter of keeping the populace from hating your guts. That's what a leader has to do.

[Crystal Spires]

Even though life flourishes on our planet, we have no clue if it may exist other where in our universe. So we do our best to preserve it. So Imperial Decree-ID0038 has forbidden the death penalty only for the highest crimes to be committed in Nuvalia Treason, and Homicide.

That seems like a reasonable decree, but even if life is not discovered in other planets or if it does how would it change how you handle your decree?

[Alyakia]

Hey! Maybe we should put the victims in the jury!

Avoiding the murky areas of conscious choice to break the law, you realize that isn't some wildcard that lets you treat people like animals and torture them, right?

They are to be treated as enemies of the state, and however your populace believes an enemy of state should be treated, that is how you treat criminals. If you populace believes that they should be treated respectably and amicably held, then that should be done, if your populace believes they should be cruelly executed, that should be done. It's a matter of keeping the populace from hating your guts. That's what a leader has to do.

Catholics, by virtue of giving their allegiance to a foreign head of state, that is, the Pope, are enemies of the state, and should be treated like shit and executed like the rest of the enemies of the state. We gotta listen to the populace. No matter what.

[Icamera]

I support the death penalty, making this my only non-liberal political view.

My opinion on the prison system:

I would have everything possible done to rehabilitate criminals, but there is no point in rehabilitating those who receive life sentences. Incapacitating criminals via prison incapacitating them via the death penalty are equally effective (technically, prison is less effective since they could break out, but there's no point in using that for my argument since that nearly never happens). Given a choice between the two, I'd choose the latter because taxpayers should not have to pay to keep life-sentenced criminals in jail for every year of the rest of their life. The money would be better spent on education, welfare, and rehabilitation, all of which reduce crime rates.

Summary: If a criminal receives a life sentence, use the death penalty. If not, rehabilitation is the answer.

[Crystal Spires]

Catholics, by virtue of giving their allegiance to a foreign head of state, that is, the Pope, are enemies of the state, and should be treated like shit and executed like the rest of the enemies of the state. We gotta listen to the populace. No matter what.

If that is what your populace wants. You are an agent of your people or you are a tyrant who goes against the will of your people. Democracy is a matter of acting on the behalf of the majority, or have you forgotten? An enemy of the state is an enemy of the state.

[Seperates]

Even though life flourishes on our planet, we have no clue if it may exist other where in our universe. So we do our best to preserve it. So Imperial Decree-ID0038 has forbidden the death penalty only for the highest crimes to be committed in Nuvalia Treason, and Homicide.

Oh for Christ sakes, this is OOC

[Alyakia]

Given a choice between the two, I'd choose the latter because taxpayers should not have to pay to keep life-sentenced criminals in jail for every year of the rest of their life.

The death penalty causes a larger burden on the taxpayer than life imprisonment.

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411625_md_death_penalty.pdf

We find that both the filing of a death notice and the imposition of a death sentence added significantly to the cost of a case. For the average case, a death notice adds $670,000 in costs over the duration of a case. A death sentence adds an additional $1.2 million in processing costs. Thus the average total cost for a single death sentence is about $1.9 million over and above the cost of a similar case with no death penalty sought.

About 70% of the added cost of a death notice case occurs during the trial phase. These additional costs are due to a longer pre-trial period, a longer and more intensive voir dire process, longer trials, more time spent by more attorneys preparing cases, and an expensive penalty phase
trial that does not occur at all in non-death penalty cases. In addition, death notice casesare more likely to incur costs during the appellate phase even if there is no death sentence.

http://www.ccfaj.org/documents/reports/ ... ENALTY.pdf

We currently have a dysfunctional system. The lapse of time from sentence of death to execution averages over two decades in California. Just to keep cases moving at this snail’s pace, we spend large amounts of taxpayers’ money each year: by conservative estimates, well over one hundred million dollars annually. The families of murder victims are cruelly deluded into believing that justice will be delivered with finality during their lifetimes. Those condemned to death in violation of law must wait years until the courts determine they are entitled to a new trial or penalty hearing. The strain placed by these cases on our justice system, in terms of the time and attention taken away from other business that the courts must conduct for our citizens, is heavy. To reduce the average lapse of time from sentence to execution by half, to the national average of 12 years, we will have to spend nearly twice what we are spending now.

---------------------------

Using conservative rough projections, the Commission estimates the annual costs of the present system ($137 million per year), the present
system after implementation of the reforms recommended in Part A ($232.7 million per year), a system in which significant narrowing of special
circumstances has been implemented ($130 million per year), and a system which imposes a maximum penalty of lifetime incarceration instead of the death penalty ($11.5 million).

[Alyakia]

Catholics, by virtue of giving their allegiance to a foreign head of state, that is, the Pope, are enemies of the state, and should be treated like shit and executed like the rest of the enemies of the state. We gotta listen to the populace. No matter what.

If that is what your populace wants. You are an agent of your people or you are a tyrant who goes against the will of your people. Democracy is a matter of acting on the behalf of the majority, or have you forgotten? An enemy of the state is an enemy of the state.

So, wait, if I DON'T commit genocide against Catholics I'm a tyrant?

[Crystal Spires]

Given a choice between the two, I'd choose the latter because taxpayers should not have to pay to keep life-sentenced criminals in jail for every year of the rest of their life.

The death penalty causes a larger burden on the taxpayer than life imprisonment.

I've seen those statistics and once again am having to attribute it to the ineffectiveness of trying to keep an execution "humane" which is a counterproductive claim. Just a simple bullet to the head would do the trick.

[Crystal Spires]

If that is what your populace wants. You are an agent of your people or you are a tyrant who goes against the will of your people. Democracy is a matter of acting on the behalf of the majority, or have you forgotten? An enemy of the state is an enemy of the state.
So, wait, if I DON'T commit genocide against Catholics I'm a tyrant?

If your people want you to commit genocide and you do not and you enforce your minority view upon them, yes.

[Geniasis]

A few problems with that, amigo.

1) The death penalty is more costly than life imprisonment.

2) Innocent people get executed.

3) There's this little thing called "the right to life" and "the right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment"... For European citizens, there's also the little thing known as the Convention on Human Rights and Article I of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Make it more cost effective, limit to one appeal once evidence is solid, and before you whine about a few individuals, worry about traffic accidents which kill far more. And in my view, they no longer deserve the right to life once they have murdered a human in cold blood for no proper cause (self defense for example). They need to me removed from the public in the most cost-effective manner, throwing them off a cliff is free and 'quick' if you must care about their feelings.

This may surprise you, but I am entirely capable of considering two subjects simultaneously. I can worry about traffic accidents while maintaining that the amount of innocent people on death row is unacceptable.

[Alyakia]

I've seen those statistics and once again am having to attribute it to the ineffectiveness of trying to keep an execution "humane" which is a counterproductive claim. Just a simple bullet to the head would do the trick.

Are you saying it's due to using things like lethal injection instead of just shooting them in the head?

[Crystal Spires]

I've seen those statistics and once again am having to attribute it to the ineffectiveness of trying to keep an execution "humane" which is a counterproductive claim. Just a simple bullet to the head would do the trick.

Are you saying it's due to using things like lethal injection instead of just shooting them in the head?

Yes. I personally maintain that the use of appeals is something I will not negotiate with citizens, because if you sacrifice appeals impartiality is a facade.

[An Intelligent Man]

I am of two minds:
First off, the death penalty carries no weight in staving off crime. Proven fact. It is effectively an ethical issue.
a) A life in prison (with no parole) has guaranteed civil rights abuses, and is really expensive, so just kill them.
b) Causing death is bad.
I would have to go, despite my liberalness, with door one. It might be brutal, but I see no benefit to keeping them alive once all legal recourse has been exhausted.

[The Parkus Empire]

Killing isn't intrinsically unethical.

Yes it is. In before cirucumstantial examples.

I don't see how it is any more than stealing is.

[Alyakia]

Are you saying it's due to using things like lethal injection instead of just shooting them in the head?

Yes. I personally maintain that the use of appeals is something I will not negotiate with citizens, because if you sacrifice appeals impartiality is a facade.

Did you read the statistic that said 70% of the added cost comes from the trial phase?

[Alyakia]

Yes it is. In before cirucumstantial examples.

I don't see how it is any more than stealing is.

You see Parkus, there's a bit of a difference between killing someone and stealing their toothbrush.

[Geniasis]

Yes it is. In before cirucumstantial examples.

I don't see how it is any more than stealing is.

It doesn't help that this particular axiom is held a priori. If you're already part of the club, it naturally follows. If you're not, then it doesn't seem to work.