The Capital Punishment Debate

[Infanteer]

Looks like the moral authority swings both way's.

You bet.

 

[TCBF]

"I don't understand how people come onto this issue swinging moral authority like a Baptist minister.  How is sentencing a man to a cage for the rest of his life any less ethical then hanging him by the neck?"

- Good point.  Let's do both.

Tom

 

[Glorified Ape]

No...most of the outspoken minority and the pandering politicos are against it. Like most everything else in this country, the silent majority do agree. It's a shame, they don't speak out, but that's it.

I'd hardly call 52% in 2001 a clear majority, especially since it was 73% in 1987 and if the trend has continued on the same lines, I'd wager support for the death penalty is below the 50% mark by now.

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDC-1-73-625-3345/politics_economy/death_penalty/clip10

 

[Jungle]

"I don't understand how people come onto this issue swinging moral authority like a Baptist minister.  How is sentencing a man to a cage for the rest of his life any less ethical then hanging him by the neck?"

- Good point.  Let's do both.

Tom

I agree; the rest of his life may last 30 years... or the 30 minutes needed to get the rope ready !!  

 

[Edward Campbell]

I rather wish we had kept capital punishment for some of the offences which appear (used to appear) at the beginning of Vol. II of QR&O: the ones which promised death or less punishment for officers who traitorously surrendered their commands.  I do not favour hanging/shooting cowards, treasonous ORs, people with twisted boot laces or those who absconded with the Sergeants’ Mess cash, although I might reconsider for gum chewing and hands in pockets.

If we are going to resurrect capital punishment for civilian crimes then we must, I think, if we are honest, use all of its deterrent value: do it in public, in the late afternoon, near our public schools where impressionable children will learn that (some) crimes don’t pay at all.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Imprisonment is an infringement of mobility rights. Execution is an infringement of the right to life. Hierarchically, there is a difference; also, the former can be done for a span of time less than the life of the convict.

>I did not join the military to kill people

Very few join for that reason.  I'll go further and guess that efforts are made to prevent such people from joining.  The question to ask is: why did you join a profession in which it's nearly a certainty that your efforts will in some small way eventually contribute to the deaths of people whose only wrong decision was to be in a target area or present during a firefight.  Whether you pull the trigger, maintain the rifle, deliver the ammunition, or fill out the paperwork in an office in Ottawa is irrelevant to anything except your share of the guilt: that you share in the guilt is certain.  Any of us who is eligible to vote is not really any closer to the mechanistic procedure of executing a prisoner condemned by the government than he is to the mechanistic procedure of identifying, clearing, and air-delivering ordnance to a target where people might be killed in order to achieve a political aim deemed expedient by the government.  If you wish to believe that in the latter case chance is a factor, I will simply point out in advance that just as you can avoid wrongful execution by not having any, you can avoid collateral damage by not seeking to cause any primary damage.  In both cases you have positive control.

 

[Prariedawg]

I think one of the nastier ways to execute someone has to be the gas chamber,You have to actively participate in your own execution to avoid drawing it out and those who resisted the fumes have taken up to 18-20 mins to die sometimes in what appered to be brutal agony.With the other methods someone fires a bullet,throws a switch,opens a trapdoor or pushes a syringe and its game over.I imagine sitting in the chamber watching the mist rise(slowly) trying to decide either to start sucking it in or holding your breath must be one of the most horrible ways to go.

 

[Dissident]

Whatever. In most likelyness, you deserve to be in the gas chamber. I have no pity for the condemne.

I am in favor of the daeth penalty, and I don't believe it has to be humane.

The electric chair apparently takes more than one jolts before the guy bites it.

Im from the school of George Carlin[g] on this. Catapult a guy straight into a brick wall, or decapitate them with an olive fork. And no, I am not making light of the situation.

 

[Infanteer]

Imprisonment is an infringement of mobility rights. Execution is an infringement of the right to life. Hierarchically, there is a difference; also, the former can be done for a span of time less than the life of the convict.

Okay, so technically there is a difference in what right we are infringing upon; but if we are to lock Paul Bernardo up for life without the chance of parole, is it any better than simply sending him to the gallows?  Putting someone in a box for the rest of their natural life doesn't seem to be preserving much "right to life" - as Jungle says its only a difference between 30 years and 30 seconds, but the same effect is achieved (removing the offender from society for good).

 

[Warthor]

Some system has to be thought up of altogether, like from Johny English turn Britain into a huge prison. Joking, British people dont get angry at me. No but really all of the justice systems arent really that effecient, if someone killls someone and they quickly die chancesa re that there criminaly insane and dying is an easy way out. Jail also can be a bit too light also especially in Canada.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

How about a truly Canadian execution.  Take them to the high arctic and simply dump them out on the glacier in January in shorts and a t-shirt?  From what I understand freezing to death isn't that bad.  You just get sleepy and then go away.  No big expensive injection rig, or gas chamber or power bill.  Leave the body for the polar bears.  (and  maybe by accident put them out near the polar bears before they get a chance to freeze).

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Imprisonment is an infringement of mobility rights. Execution is an infringement of the right to life.

Isn't that kind of the point?  Some acts should forfeit your right to life.  And for that matter, why don't we make life a privilege?  That should clear up some of the red tape.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

How about a truly Canadian execution.  Take them to the high arctic and simply dump them out on the glacier in January in shorts and a t-shirt?  From what I understand freezing to death isn't that bad.  You just get sleepy and then go away.  No big expensive injection rig, or gas chamber or power bill.  Leave the body for the polar bears.  (and  maybe by accident put them out near the polar bears before they get a chance to freeze).

How would you recover the body to bury them according to their religion if its been eaten by polar bears?

 

[Grunthor]

i say do to them what they did to the victem(s), if they burnt the person to death, torch em, if they strangled the person to death, strangel em, if they btk'd btk them, etc.  those innocent victems never did anything, i think people are too concerned about the wellbeing of the killers, it's there own fault they're there in the first place, however there is always the whole wrongful conviction thing, and that wouldn't be good to burn the wrong person to death.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

How would you recover the body to bury them according to their religion if its been eaten by polar bears?

Wait till the bear takes a dump, then turn it over to the family.

 

[silverbach]

All of these replies are truely interesting, but the question remains: why was capital punishment taken away from our criminal justice system ? One could respond: well, it's because of the human rights laws and the Charter of human rights in Canada. All right, well, the United States has the bill of rights and some States still has the death sentence...interesting point, especially when we consider that our Charter was inspired by that very same Bill of rights.

Isn't that a kind of fact that makes you go...hmmm !

 

[missing1]

Wait till the bear takes a dump, then turn it over to the family.

Vote  Zipperhead for Attorney General

 

[Soon2binfantry]

I say the injection cause it's the least painful, cause you always have to think what if the person getting executed is not guilty, and then dies a painful death.

 

[Clément Barbeau Vermet]

I say hanging. Simple and costless.

 

[48Highlander]

All of these replies are truely interesting, but the question remains: why was capital punishment taken away from our criminal justice system ? One could respond: well, it's because of the human rights laws and the Charter of human rights in Canada.

All right, well, the United States has the bill of rights and some States still has the death sentence...interesting point, especially when we consider that our Charter was inspired by that very same Bill of rights.

Isn't that a kind of fact that makes you go...hmmm !

:blotto:

Sure it is.

First of all, the charter has nothing to say on the matter of executions.  It does have the following to say about your right to life:

7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Which basicaly means that everyone has the right to live, unless the justice system decides otherwise.  Executions of criminals don't violate "the principles of fundamental justice", therefore the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not forbid it.

Want to see a case where Canadian Law blatantly IGNORES the charter?  Hate Speech laws.  The Charter clearly states that you have the right to:

b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

Therfore hate speech laws clearly violate that right.  Yet Canadians in general seem to think hate speech laws are a good thing.  THAT is what "makes you go...hmmmm".

As far as the US constitution goes, you're thinking of the Fith Amendment:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Same idea but stated even more clearly than in our own poorly worded Charter.  You have the right to live and will not be deprived of that right without due proccess of the law.  That's the part that all the anti-death-penalty advocates always conviniently forget.