Re: Death penalty

Mike Findlay <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.music.dadl.ot
Message-ID <[email protected]>
I am actually thinking of a greater likelihood that families oppose the death 
penalty asking for leniency.   IOW the sentence on the books is death but it can 
be commuted with support of the family.  In that case the family wouldn't be 
voting for revenge but they also wouldn't have the death of the criminal to add 
to their suffering if they were opposed to the death penalty.   Victims of 
crimes and their families are heard from at sentencing so to the extent they do 
want revenge they are allowed to express it and a judge can take that into 
account when imposing a legal sentence.     

Also, my question is assuming for the sake of argument that innocent people 
aren't being put to death.  But in this case in Connecticut that isn't a 
concern.  Those are the cases I'm referring to, and they do exist: where there 
is no question of guilt and the crime is particularly heinous.

There are murders that we have all heard of that fit that scenario.  In those 
cases death is the only just option.  


Mike F. 



----- Original Message ----
From: Peter T. Chattaway <petert-LOVM4QxV+tDq6eQxt3vRmLDks+cytr/[email protected]>
To: DADL (off topic) <[email protected]>
Sent: Mon, November 8, 2010 3:14:44 PM
Subject: Re: [DADL-OT] Death penalty

On Mon, 8 Nov 2010, Mike Findlay wrote:
> But I would support a system which gives the victim's family the ultimate say 
>of whether the death penalty should be applied.

I wouldn't.  I'm all in favour of self-defense.  I am *not* in favour of 
revenge.  And giving the victims a say means letting the victims choose revenge, 
which is to say it means letting them choose death.  In a culture that already 
lets people choose death in cases of abortion, etc., I guess it isn't a big 
stretch to permit these other choices as well.  But still.

And this is *before* we get to the question of mistaken convictions etc.

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