The two main reasons why I don’t support a death sentence in any case are:
1. People sometimes get sentenced for crimes they did not commit. By at least letting them live in prison rather than killing them we give them a chance to fight the sentence.
2. The law is not objectively “correct” because there is no such thing as a single “true” morality. Multiple moral stances exist, and we should be somewhat tolerant of that.
Finally I believe that the justice system should to the greatest extent possible exist to prevent crime and reform criminals so that they can be productive members of society, not primarily exist to punish criminals.
In my country — Norway — this is reflected in how the police handle confrontational situations. The Norwegian police force always tries to deescalate, whereas in the US the police are very aggressive in a lot of situations that should not call for that sort of reaction.
There are very many people that do bad things not because they are fundamentally bad people but because of their circumstances. Everyone deserves a chance.
Some people cannot be helped and need to remain locked up because they pose a threat to the rest of society, but that should be what we do when we see that we cannot reform them, not how we treat everyone who breaks the current set of laws.
It's a bit rich for you to hold up Norway as a model for sensible attitudes towards punishment. This is the same country that sentenced a man who killed 77 people to 21 years in a resort-like prison. Regardless of your own philosophy, most people (even opponents of the death penalty) would view this sentence as so absurdly lenient that it verges on psychopathy towards the victims and their families.
(I strongly disagree with the original commenter, by the way. I do think capital punishment is warranted in extreme cases.)
The goal is rehab in Norway. Not punishment. There's still a loss of freedom... But with the goal of changing the person's behavior.
This from someone who is theoretically ok with capital punishment, but in practice opposed. I do not trust that the state gets the right people all the time. I also think it's too slow and burocratic a process to work as anything other than revenge.
(1.) In high profile federal cases executions occur relatively swiftly. The reason it's slow in many cases is due to all of the procedural safeguards that we have in place to protect defendants.
(2.) People often dismiss retribution without explaining why it's not a valid basis for punishment. Personally, I believe Norway is morally bankrupt for viewing rehab as the only acceptable goal of punishment, as the Breivik case vividly illustrates. You may not find the Breivik sentence appalling, but you should recognize that you are in the minority. And if this guy is going to lecture Americans about the ethics of punishment, I have a right to criticize the Norwegian approach.
(3.) Alex Kozinski made an interesting observation about the possibility of wrongfully executing someone: due to all of the procedural protections in place and all of the resources devoted to capital cases, the odds of being wrongfully executed are an order of magnitude lower than the odds of being wrongfully dealt a life sentence.
Given how awful life imprisonment is, I totally reject the premise that capital punishment can only be justified if it is infallible.
Yeah. Isolation cells are "resort like" now. Maybe you want to check in into such a resort for a few years? I mean it seems to be a great deal according to you.
Myself and a lot of other people don’t believe in death sentence no matter the severity of the crime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_by_country
The two main reasons why I don’t support a death sentence in any case are:
1. People sometimes get sentenced for crimes they did not commit. By at least letting them live in prison rather than killing them we give them a chance to fight the sentence.
2. The law is not objectively “correct” because there is no such thing as a single “true” morality. Multiple moral stances exist, and we should be somewhat tolerant of that.
Amnesty International has some more arguments against death penalty as well. https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
Finally I believe that the justice system should to the greatest extent possible exist to prevent crime and reform criminals so that they can be productive members of society, not primarily exist to punish criminals.
In my country — Norway — this is reflected in how the police handle confrontational situations. The Norwegian police force always tries to deescalate, whereas in the US the police are very aggressive in a lot of situations that should not call for that sort of reaction.
There are very many people that do bad things not because they are fundamentally bad people but because of their circumstances. Everyone deserves a chance.
Some people cannot be helped and need to remain locked up because they pose a threat to the rest of society, but that should be what we do when we see that we cannot reform them, not how we treat everyone who breaks the current set of laws.