The Death Penalty

1. Jurisdiction fault, 2. Crime has been going down in the USA too. The death penalty has nothing to do with deterring crime or increasing crime. "In our experience, Most survivors want 'justice' for the murderers of their family members. Repealing the death penalty will not heal these peoples' wounds; it keeps them permanently open. . . Moreover, Victims' families will always be haunted by the specter that an inmate sentenced to life without parole will suddenly ask the governor to reduce a sentence " as happened recently in the case of a Fresno murderer who waited 36 years and applied for clemency. As long as an inmate sentenced to life without parole lives, The governor could reduce the sentence and a murderer may be released on the streets. . . [It] is dead wrong to assert that the death penalty has been conclusively shown not to deter crime. Experience and common sense confirm a deterrent effect. " "The death penalty. It should be brought back and it should be brought back strong. . . They say it's not a deterrent. Well, You know what, Maybe it's not a deterrent but these two [men convicted of killing two police officers in Hattiesburg, MS] will not do any more killing. That's for sure. " "[G]iving up on the death penalty would mean giving up on justice for crime victims and their families. The prisoners currently on California's death row have murdered more than 1, 000 people. Of those, 229 were children, 43 were peace officers, And 294 of the victims were sexually assaulted and tortured. Having a functional death penalty law will help us protect the public from society's worst criminals and bring some measure of closure to the families whose loved ones were cruelly taken from them. " "Abolitionists may contend that the death penalty is inherently immoral because governments should never take human life, No matter what the provocation. But that is an article of faith, Not of fact, Just like the opposite position held by abolitionist detractors, Including myself. . . The death penalty honors human dignity by treating the defendant as a free moral actor able to control his own destiny for good or for ill; it does not treat him as an animal with no moral sense, And thus subject even to butchery to satiate human gluttony. Moreover, Capital punishment celebrates the dignity of the humans whose lives were ended by the defendant's predation. " "Immanuel Kant said it best. He said a society that is not willing to demand a life of somebody who has taken somebody else's life is simply immoral. So the question really. . . When the system works and when you manage to identify somebody who has done such heinous evil, Do we as a society have a right to take his life? I think the answer's plainly yes. And I would go with Kant and I would say it is immoral for us not to. " "Along with two-thirds of the American public, I believe in capital punishment. I believe that there are some defendants who have earned the ultimate punishment our society has to offer by committing murder with aggravating circumstances present. I believe life is sacred. It cheapens the life of an innocent murder victim to say that society has no right to keep the murderer from ever killing again. In my view, Society has not only the right, But the duty to act in self defense to protect the innocent. " "Our federal and state constitutions are replete with rights we afford the accused -- the right to notice of charges, The right to a speedy and public trial, The right to confront witnesses, The right to counsel, The right against self-incrimination. We as a society have made a profound commitment to avoid punishing the innocent. This is particularly important to those of us who support the death penalty in appropriate circumstances. We have determined that there are instances when the crimes are so egregious that society"s ultimate punishment -- the death penalty -- may be appropriate. But the imposition of this punishment can be justified only if we make full use of all available tools to aid in the determination of guilt or innocence. " "[O]n certain empirical assumptions, Capital punishment may be morally required, Not for retributive reasons, But rather to prevent the taking of innocent lives. In so saying, We are suggesting the possibility that states are obliged to maintain the death penalty option. "