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So Eurpoeans don't execute criminals?

Consumer

Consumer

Elder Statesman
Belarus still allows for capital punishment.
Latvia only allows it for crimes in wartime.

The rest of Europe (48 out of 50 countries) has abolished it OR holds it in a moratorium status and risks penalties from the EU if the un-moratorium the practice.

Note that Russia isn't part of that number, but they are currently not using Capital punishment (officially, however Amnesty International says that "informal" executions are still practiced).

Does that make those on the other side of the Atlantic from the US feel "Superior"? Is it any less or more just to lock someone up for life?

I will hold my own, personal views on executions to myself for now. However, what makes you think that not killing criminals after due-process makes European justice more or less "civilized" and advanced than a justice system that DOES allow for capital punishment?

By the way, between 1946 and 1993, Japanese courts sentenced 766 people to death (including a small number from People's Republic of China, South Korea and Malaysia), 608 of whom were executed. Executions are still ongoing (although my statistics aren't up to date), Japan still uses hanging.
 
I have always been against capital punishment. Not because I feel that murderers don't deserve it. Clearly they do. It's primarily because it's something that can't be undone, and the error rate of innocent people being convicted is quite high. I also don't feel it's necessary for public safety. Locking people up for life serves the same purpose, thus this makes it strictly for revenge and retribution. Again, I don't have anything against that motive. (As long as people don't lie about it and claim it's for some other reason) So, being that it isn't really necessary for public safety, anything less than 100% accuracy in convictions is unacceptable to me. You can release someone if it's proven they're innocent. You can't bring them back from the dead. I also don't trust the government as far as I can throw it, so putting life and death in their hands like this, is a dangerous thing for society as a whole. People claim there's a deterrent effect. There may be some, but it's not significant enough to warrant the downside.
 
The US has a very "secret" way of disposing criminals without the use of visible execution Most prisons just simply thow them out onto the courtyards, inform everyone of what they did, and let the inmates carry out the executions for them.

From what I hear, the life expancy of a woman beater or child molester in most prisons range anywhere between 12-18 months...tops!
 
hm, this is weird: I've just posted a long reply even before starguard did, and it just vanished. I swear I've hit the reply button. Could that be some kind of server hiccup?

Anyway...

I don't know about other Europeans, but I certainly don't feel superior because of this. Since I am against the death penalty, though, I do feel quite lucky that at one point in history, the German government decided that capital punishment is not compatible with the way our society works. And, frankly, since I'm not so sure if the majority of Germans still think that way, I feel even more lucky that the current government does not feel inclined to (and actually may not) put this issue up for discussion.

IMO it's not a question of being more civilized or not. The decision on whether a country has the death penalty or not is based on a variety of factors, such as the society's history, the religion the majority of its members belong to, the value that the society puts on the life of every individual member, even those who did something said society deems inacceptable, to name but a few. It's one of those fundamental questions that can't be answered easily, and as much as I'd like everyone to share my opinion on this, I can accept the fact that a lot of people don't. I would just not feel exactly comfortable living in a society that allows for capital punishment.
 
starguard said:
The US has a very "secret" way of disposing criminals without the use of visible execution Most prisons just simply thow them out onto the courtyards, inform everyone of what they did, and let the inmates carry out the executions for them.

From what I hear, the life expancy of a woman beater or child molester in most prisons range anywhere between 12-18 months...tops!
Click to expand...

If this were absolutely true then we wouldn't hear stories about offenders who are let out several times and re-offend several times. I am sure it happens, but probably not as often as you think. There are more rules protecting those assholes than you realize.
 
I've always been conflicted regarding the death penalty. For the most part, I agree that killing a person who has committed a henious crime does not change what happened in the original crime. I think it is possible that a person who committed a heinous crime can change their ways. I also think that deliberately killing someone is murder.

However, I was an impressionable teen when the Manson trial took place. Those murders were pretty heinous. And, then there are two local events I am aware of, one involving a person I knew personally, involving heinous murders. Things really changed in my POV when the person who committed the murders was a person I knew personally, a young man who had gone to school with my daughter, his father had been my mechanic on a few car repairs, his family had lived two houses from another relative of mine. And the people he had murdered were also people I knew as more than a piece of text in a news article. One person he killed was his father - the man who had fixed my car a couple of times. Another person he killed was his sister whom my daughter had babysat for a few times. Another person he killed was the infant he had with the sister he murdered. He took the baby to Mexico and sold it into the sex trade. His crimes regarding the father, sister, and child were found out when he was being sought for the murder of his current wife and two of her children from a previous marriage. There was no doubt he had done all that damage. I would never want to be anywhere near him again. He had fooled me into thinking he was a decent young person. I would never want him near my daughter. Would leaving him locked up forever be the right thing to do? Does that happen? Are there old people in prisons all over America - people who did heinous things locked up forever so they can't do that kind of thing ever again?

Then, again, as soon as I think I am okay with the death penalty, another person on death row is exonerated. And, like it was said up above, death is final. There is no making up for that.
 
first of all, capital punishment has one huge disadvantage: the inevitable mistakes made by courts can not be corrected.
Imagine yourself at the receiving end: would you appreciate it if you'd get executed for something you didn't, only because some evidence led people to the wrong conclusions, and 5 years after your death they'd prove you had been totally innocent and 'sorry, shit happens'?

Secondly, we believe that nobody has the right to take someone else's life. No exceptions. If you kill someone,you are a murderer. Killing a murderer is still murder.
All this 'an eye for an eye' bullshit has gone on for almost 4000 years (first written mentioning of that rule in Hamurabi's law codex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi). The Bronze Age is long over and the Babylonian Empire died thousands of years ago. After four millennia it's time to do away with its laws as well.
 
Then what do you do with the persons who murdered other persons? Imagine yourself at the receiving end. You are dead. The person who murdered you isn't. Your family and friends are grieving. The community is outraged and living in fear because laws have been chunked out the window. It is a free for all. Get your guns out. Put a cannon by the door. Build a moat around your house filled with alligators and electrify your castle walls. Don't leave your house for you may be shot and as there are no laws, too bad, so sad for you.
 
no, that'd put me down on the same level as a murderer.
We simply lock them up for 20 years. Within two decades the world changes so much that usually they are too busy getting a life again and have no time to even think about murder again.
We've been doing that for 2 generations now and it works excellently. Our crime rate is far lower than in any US state.

And whether someone grieves or not, how long and for what reason is their personal matter. Feelings don't count in our judical system. Only the naked facts do.

People watching an execution and actually cheering is disgustingly primitive and barbaric beyond words. Unworthy of any human being. Those people are worse than any animal and worse than any murderer (because murderers usually refrain from cheering when killing someone).
§1 of our constitution says "human dignity is untouchable". And this applies to ALL situations.
 
Since the same result can be had with life imprisonment, I don't see what use the death penalty is except for retribution and revenge. Again, I'm not judging those motives. I understand them and would feel the exact same way. But if it isn't necesary for public safety, then the price of keeping it around is too high.
 
I don't think it is necessarily revenge and retribution. Personally, I think locking a person up for the rest of their life is bad. I also don't agree that society should have to support a person for the rest of their life because that person committed heinous acts against other persons. I'm not talking about bad characters who stole somebody's lunch money or robbed a bank. Example: Karla Fay Tucker. She took an axe and murdered a couple of old people she didn't know. She got the death penalty. Poor thing cried and boohooed for years that she was a changed person. I'm sure she was. Being in prison is not conducive to being around axes and old people to murder with axes. Under some people's way of thinking, putting someone in prison for 20 years is the right thing to do with people who deprive other persons of their lives permanently - and, oh, too bad if that makes anybody sad.
 
Why do you think I'm hypocritical on that? You don't think it is cold blooded to say that the feelings of a person who has been seriously wronged don't matter?
 
Instead of writing something that means little except your disapproval, write what it is you think and why you think that way.
You say I have no idea. Really? Why do you think that? Why do you think you have an idea and I don't?
 
Although its cheaper to kill convicts, prison is supposed to be about deprivation of liberties, not deprivation of life.
 
eloisel said:
Instead of writing something that means little except your disapproval, write what it is you think and why you think that way.
You say I have no idea. Really? Why do you think that? Why do you think you have an idea and I don't?
Click to expand...

Has it even occured to you that there may be someone out there that isn't desperate for your approval? Did you know you can be quite full of yourself?

Excuse me but I think I'll post as I see fit. You know, just like you.
 
Why do you think I'm hypocritical on that? You don't think it is cold blooded to say that the feelings of a person who has been seriously wronged don't matter?
Click to expand...
First of all, there was exactly one person who said something that could be construed as meaning that "the feelings of a person who has been seriously wronged don't matter", so using the term 'y'all' kind of bugs me.

Call of Nature merely pointed out that when it comes to German jurisdiction, emotions are not the basis of decision-making, or, rather, shouldn't be. Isn't that the same in the US, too? Or do US courts have different degrees of penalty based on the number of people who feel hurt by the crime committed as well as on the intensity of the emotional reactions in each case?

If a society lets emotions rule the jurisdictional process, it will violate the rights of every member to be treated equally and fairly (which I do hope you agree with me is a good thing).


Of course, this doesn't say anything about how and what each individual feels when confronted with this topic. If I started entering the discussion about capital punishment in earnest, you would quickly realize just how emotionally involved I can get. That's ususally the reason why I stay out of it (I've also decided quite a while ago to not try imposing my world view on people.)


Now, about the hypocrisy:

In this context, I take the term 'cold-blooded' to mean 'lacking of feeling', is that correct?
If yes, then you've accused those being against the death penalty of not taking into account the pain and hurt of those involved in or affected by the crime. Yet, just shortly after, you post

Under some people's way of thinking, putting someone in prison for 20 years is the right thing to do with people who deprive other persons of their lives permanently - and, oh, too bad if that makes anybody sad.
Click to expand...
(bolding's mine).
So, you're telling us in no uncertain terms that you not only don't give a fuck about the person being sent to prison (which I can understand somehow, especially when s/he committed a gruesome crime), but you also couldn't care less about anybody else involved, for example their spouses, parents, children. I bet that for them, it's one hell of a difference if they're visiting their family member in prison or on a grave site. Do their feelings not count at all?



Moreso, this statement of yours:
I also don't agree that society should have to support a person for the rest of their life because that person committed heinous acts against other persons.
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which is, unfortunately, a very common one, really bugs me.
I wonder how much longer it will take human societies to not only postulate, but actually internalize that the value of life cannot be expressed in cash? Seriously, and I wish you could witness my blood pressure rising just by merely writing it down:

Saying that a person who has killed a human being for base motives is wrong, and then wanting to kill the same person simply because it's cheaper for the tax payer is not only one of the most cold-blooded things I can imagine, but also the height of hypocrisy.

Again: if I misunderstood any of your statements, please correct me, since more often than not, discussions like these get overly heated because of people not entirely grasping what the other has meant.
 
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