The Capital Punishment Debate

[OldSolduer]

If you look at history, you'll see that its a custom and law that we don't kill PWs. And I agree, it would be wrong.

Besides, I really think this is a red herring. We've hung murderers in the past.

 

[ballz]

Any comparison of the serial killer to a professional soldier was intended to show that someone who we would agree is more deserving of death (the enemy soldier in an intense, kinetic, risky situation) is afforded his right to life, whereas a serial killer (captured, incarcirated, and posing virtually no imminent threat) is not.

What makes this surrendering soldier(s) deserving of death? What did he do wrong exactly? Fought for his side, just like members of the CF do?

I have no real life experience, so sorry if I piss anybody off as this may seem like a dumb question, but how is a surrendering soldier(s) or wounded to the point of neutralized a threat? I'm not talking about in COIN, I'm talking about conventional warfare against a nation. Sure, be vigilant and treat it with caution, but a section inflicted with serious casualties waving a white flag doesn't seem much of a threat to me?

I'm still more bewildered as to why they are more "deserving of death" than a cold-blooded killer?

 

[Brutus]

What makes this surrendering soldier(s) deserving of death? What did he do wrong exactly? Fought for his side, just like members of the CF do?

I have no real life experience, so sorry if I piss anybody off as this may seem like a dumb question, but how is a surrendering soldier(s) or wounded to the point of neutralized a threat? I'm not talking about in COIN, I'm talking about conventional warfare against a nation. Sure, be vigilant and treat it with caution, but a section inflicted with serious casualties waving a white flag doesn't seem much of a threat to me?

I'm still more bewildered as to why they are more "deserving of death" than a cold-blooded killer?

We're beating a dead horse. My point was that we offer mercy to PWs for ethical reasons (among other reasons), but many propose not offering mercy to a person of much less imminent threat. My issue is not with the PW obviously (and if it was this is the wrong thread), but with the dismissal of the ethical consequences of the cold blooded killing of a man who poses no threat to anyone, imminently. Yes, that threat may resurface, but we should address that by eliminating the possibility through life incarciration, not by killing them.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Yes a very smart way to solve our problems. Force labor upon people smoking marijuana. I don't smoke it myself, but I understand the complete stupidity of the money we spend on controlling it. Do you know what the largest source of economic income is in BC? Marijuana 6 billions dollars a year. I do understand what your saying though in SOME sense it seems people in prison for doing petty crimes end up receiving more then the law abiding citizen.

I won't lose the point of the topic on the other hand;

As i stated before the charter defends the fact that, that we don't have the right to put someone to death as they are allowed the right to LIFE.

Pot is harmless, just ask the people who have their houses broken into by addicts ot the RCMP who were killed out west.
Criminals, regardless of their crimes "giving back" to soceity in the form of free labour is a very smart idea, I agree with you.

You either believe in justified killings or you dont. I do. I dont believe all life is equal- I believe it starts out that way and then through your actions you can reduce your value.

I refuse to offer protections to the rights of a person who refuses good people the same consideration. (in theory of course- as a member of society I have to go with some things i dont like!)

I believe in preemptive strikes on bombmakers. I believe that killing terrorists with UAV's is good. I believe that bombing Hiroshima was the correct course of action at that time.

Some people need to be stopped. Im not uncomfortable with the idea. They choose their actions.

The moral highground is a luxury not afforded by reality in my opinion.

I'd sit down for a drink or 12 with you any day man, good post!

 

[OldSolduer]

Excuse me but as a former Correctional Officer with some experience, serial killers when incarcerated,  don't stop vicitmizing. They find ways and means to continue, legal or otherwise.

They do not "rehabilitate". They never will.

Ted Bundy will victimize no longer.

 

[Brutus]

Excuse me but as a former Correctional Officer with some experience, serial killers when incarcerated,  don't stop vicitmizing. They find ways and means to continue, legal or otherwise.

They do not "rehabilitate". They never will.

Ted Bundy will victimize no longer.

Totally agree. My understanding is that these individuals are, for the most part, sociopaths and cannot be changed. But not all murderers are sociopaths.

 

[OldSolduer]

Totally agree. My understanding is that these individuals are, for the most part, sociopaths and cannot be changed. But not all murderers are sociopaths.

You are in fact correct. I've spoken with several. Most are the "heat of the moment" types - men who have what we call "anger managment" issues. In other words, bad tempers.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Anyone is capable of ending another life given the right stressors or enticements.  To actively hunt them down and torture them before ending their lives, and to do so repeatedly, takes a special kind of sicko, who will never be anything but a sicko, 30 years of state supplied "rehabilitation" or not.

 

[Brutus]

Anyone is capable of ending another life given the right stressors or enticements.  To actively hunt them down and torture them before ending their lives, and to do so repeatedly, takes a special kind of sicko, who will never be anything but a sicko, 30 years of state supplied "rehabilitation" or not.

Agreed.

I don't want to be read as some kind of softy. People like Pickton and Olsen can never be reached, they will never feel remorse, they will never be rehabilitated. I just don't agree that killing them is an acceptable alternative to letting them rot in prison, risks of escape and violence in prison be damned.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Alright folks, as stated earlier, we're going in ever shrinking circles here......again. Get your final points in as we're coming up short on wasting any more time. You'll have a chance the next time the subject comes up again and again and again.

The Forum is not in the habit of letting people chime off incessantly, just so they can hear themselves talk.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[KevinB]

Its the State that controls the use of force, either the Military to kill an Enemy combatant (lawful or unlawful combatants), or the Legal System to Kill an Enemy of the State, who has been tried and found guilty by a jury of his/her peers.

I'm proud to life in a state that both has castle law (so I can invoke my own sentence if need be), CCW and Capital Punishment.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Forget tap-dancing around the LOAC and go to the heart of state-sanctioned killing.  When Canadians send forces abroad, Canadians risk collateral killings.  As I wrote in another thread: "The restraint against a government killing a non-citizen, who is emphatically not subject to its powers by any reasonable standard, should be greater than against killing those theoretically subject to its powers; the restraint against killing innocents should be greater than against killing criminals, particularly criminals of a predatory nature."  Since we are willing to risk killing innocent foreigners not subject to our laws and customs, we have already crossed the bar for killing criminal citizens subject to our laws.

Against the death penalty:  "And the simplest and most compelling objection is that for a not unbearable annual maintenance cost, a convict's life is preserved against the possibility evidence might later surface which casts doubt on guilt."

However, in some cases there will be a preponderance of non-circumstantial evidence which removes all doubt.  Even then we can first separate those who are a risk only to the "weak" (ie. will not attack a CO or inmate) from those who are a risk to everybody and focus further attention to the latter.  CO's must accept some risk as a condition of the job; inmates are not so bound.  A true life prisoner has little else to lose if he can not be executed.  Execution is not general deterrence; it is specific deterrence.  And at some level, confinement and restraint also become cruel and unusual.

 

[mariomike]

And at some level, confinement and restraint also become cruel and unusual.

Then there are the Tex Watson's, ( Manson Family ).  He was scheduled for the gas chamber at San Quentin, but was reprieved, along with Manson, Sirhan Sirhan and many others when California temporarily abolished the death penalty. After that, Tex went on to get married behind bars and sired four more children during conjugal visits.

Or Canada'a Roch Theriault who is still ( last I read ) visited regularly by some of his former cult "wives,'' who have moved to New Brunswick to be close to him and have borne him more children following conjugal visits.

Or this guy: "Life inside a British Columbia prison – a facility dubbed Club Fed – has been good for the man who shot dead two people in an Osgoode Hall courtroom and left a third man paralyzed for life, a court has heard.
For nearly seven years, Kuldip Singh Samra has been playing chess, baking cookies, preparing his own meals in his residential-style unit, working in his vegetable garden, taking courses in sociology and jogging on a private track at the minimum security facility that isn't surrounded by a high wall or a barbed-wire fence.":
http://www.thestar.com/article/172315

"At one time, it even had its own "pitch and putt" golf course for inmates but, as warden Brian Lang testified yesterday, it had to be shut down because of a public outcry."

Here's one more, from Milnet.
"Mass murderer Nathan Fry seeks 'upbeat' pen pal":
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/91624/post-904996.html#msg904996

 

[zipperhead_cop]

CO's must accept some risk as a condition of the job; inmates are not so bound.

I'm hoping you are meaning "face risk".  To "accept risk" suggests that a CO should expect to be assaulted and that it is just part of the job.  That sort of thinking minimizes what they do and fosters an environment where they can get "a little hurt, it's part of the job".  Police get jammed with the same thing. 

A true life prisoner has little else to lose if he can not be executed. 

But that doesn't happen in Canada unless they have the dangerous offender status, that that doesn't happen nearly often enough. 

And at some level, confinement and restraint also become cruel and unusual.

Maybe, but our prison system is more at risk of being "overly comfortable and alluring" than being accused of being "cruel and unusual". 

 

[canada94]

Yea dangerous offender status is only given to people who have no conscious. Yet some offenders escape it and get out in 25 years, our justice system is flawed in a lot of ways; but the death penalty isn't where it starts.

Mike 

 

[GAP]

I'm thinking there are not a whole wack of 75 year old offenders out there after doing their 25 years.....for the most part they're toast....

 

[mariomike]

I'm thinking there are not a whole wack of 75 year old offenders out there after doing their 25 years.....for the most part they're toast....

Star
13 August, 1998:
"The man who shot dead a Toronto police officer after a Danforth Ave. bank robbery in 1973 has served his 25-year life sentence and is now on day parole from a Quebec penitentiary."
"Now 49, Vaillancourt was 24 when he shot and killed Maitland, 35, on Feb. 1, 1973, after a bank robbery at Coxwell-Danforth Aves."
"Vaillancourt was sentenced to hang, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after Ottawa abolished the death penalty in 1976" 
``Mr. Vaillancourt can have another life if he wants,'' McCullum said. ``Twenty-five years is not long enough. Life should mean life.'' 
http://www.tpg1.com/protest/federal/cp/star1.html

 

[canada94]

Star
13 August, 1998:
"The man who shot dead a Toronto police officer after a Danforth Ave. bank robbery in 1973 has served his 25-year life sentence and is now on day parole from a Quebec penitentiary."
"Now 49, Vaillancourt was 24 when he shot and killed Maitland, 35, on Feb. 1, 1973, after a bank robbery at Coxwell-Danforth Aves."
"Vaillancourt was sentenced to hang, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after Ottawa abolished the death penalty in 1976" 
``Mr. Vaillancourt can have another life if he wants,'' McCullum said. ``Twenty-five years is not long enough. Life should mean life.'' 
http://www.tpg1.com/protest/federal/cp/star1.html

Escaped in the nic of time.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>I'm hoping you are meaning "face risk".  To "accept risk" suggests that a CO should expect to be assaulted and that it is just part of the job.

If you prefer "face" to "accept", that's fine.  "I accept the risk" is a common enough turn of phrase when I outline risks to decision makers.  I don't think most people interpret "accept the risk of <event>" as "accept the inevitable certainty of <event>".

 

[GAP]

It's not the death penalty, but I assume the deterrent effect is still there....

Iranian authorities cut off hand of convicted thief in front of other prisoners
Article Link
By: The Associated Press Posted: 24/10/2010

Iranian authorities have amputated the hand of a convicted thief in front of other prisoners, state radio reported Sunday, in a possible step toward restoring the punishment to common use and carrying it out in public.

Cutting off the hands of thieves — allowed for by the Iranian judiciary's strict reading of Islamic law — has been rare in Iran in recent years, but the amputation reported Sunday was the second this month. And a week ago, a judge ordered the same punishment for a man who stole from a candy shop, though that ruling can still be appealed.

Sunday's report said the 32-year-old convict, whose hand was cut off at a prison in the central city of Yazd, had committed four robberies and other crimes. It did not elaborate or identify the prisoner by name. Yazd is 400 miles, or 670 kilometres, southeast of the capital, Tehran.

There were no details on how the punishment was carried out. There have been conflicting reports in the past, with some saying amputations were done in the early 1980s without any medical procedures. Other reports said they were carried out in the presence of a doctor. A recent news report said they would now be carried out with the prisoner receiving anesthesia.

An audience of fellow inmates was assembled to witness the amputation, which could be a sign that such punishments will be done before the public in the future.

The punishment has been part of Iran's penal code since 1980, a year after the country's clerical leaders came to power in the revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah.
More on link