I am a line walker in this question. On one hand it's wrong to kill a person but on the other it keeps them from getting another chance to commit another henious crime. As for letting them rot in prision... it costs the government like 7x more money to house a prisioner per year than it does to excute them. Each prisioner is usually lives 20 years before their excution is carried out. Even though it will not bring the loved one back in the case of murder i do not think it is much more right to let them sit there and let them do their sentence in prision. At times the most severe punishment needs to be taken.

Do you believe it was right to execute Timothy McVeigh? *Oklahoma City Bombing*

I do. Jails are overcrowded. They've commited something worth losing their life for. And they should lose their life for it.

Considering the belief/disbelief in the death penalty, you must stay consistent. You either believe or you don't. If you believe, and your mother killed someone, she would be executed. You believe.

If you don't believe, then Timothy McVeigh should still be living after killing so many.

-Charlotte, a believer in capitol punishment-

Which would you rather 80 years of boredome, in a jail cell or a quick death I know Id rather the quick death, let the buggers suffer in jail
Cheers Steve

Criminals should be left to do hard labor to benefit a community instead of taking the easy way out and dying.

Why would in the world would ne one wanna kill someone.........? i lost a friend feb 21st,2003
because of a freakin fight! The death penalty is bull****! And i don't thik ne one should die. No one deserves that pain.No one deserves to have their family's go through that. And it's plain out not right!
love always lilmiss

I believe that the death penalty is right in some cases,if you are an adult. I think that kids under 18 should have another chanse,unless they have killed more than once. Someone kills more than one person and I don't care how old that someone is,they hove a major problem and are a danger to the world. I'd like to quote some people now.
"Death is a very good punishment..... if it was just life sentences ud have nothing to lose"
Bizpa,you have a very good point. If someone is sentenced to life in prison and they know that we will not use the death penalty,what have they got to fear!!!
Another person I would like to quote is Angie14.
" I believe that when people do stupid things they have a reason. It may not be a very good reason but, its a reason none the less. "
So basically you think that because Hitler and McVeig had reasons they did not deserv death!!
I'm sorry but they killed innocent people and Hitler killed thousands of them.They deserved death,I just wish that Hitler hadn't commited suicide,the coward!
Now,I'm not saying that we do not have problems with our court system. It's true what you guys are saying about prejudice against blacks. I think that that is sick and sad and that we need to correct that.

i understand why some people want the death penalty, because someone shouldn't be allowed to take an innocent person's life without being punished. but,the system isn't accurate because DNA tests are showing that some people in jail are innocent. also it doesn't bring back the life of someone. also i think is unfair that the law is using money to convict people who are innocent. and unfortunately the metallity in this country has switched from innocent until proven guilty to guilty until proven innocent. if people want to continue the use of the death penalty they should use a more accurate system...and more DNA tests. personally i don't believe in it.

can someone tell me why it is that some one who stabs sombody 27 times and rapes them should be deserves to live? put the sho on your foot. what if someone stabbed the person who was closest to you 27 times and raped them? do you believe someone that eivil deserves to exsist? i dont think so. also lets say the death penalty in general.... if you truly believe what you say against it then you would mean that you believe that hitler would have deserved to live?

I have something to say in report to littoxlucy who said that "everyone's lives are precious and unique, and no one in this whole universe, has the right to take another's life just because he or she wanted to." What's wrong with this logic? It has just contradicted itself on the stand of the rationalization of the death penalty. If every single human life is worth something, then isn't that of the murderer worth just as much? If you want to drag religion into the picture, do you honestly think that God would value one life more than another? It is humans who cheapen one being and exalt another. Every life IS precious, that is why we should not be so hasty to end one. I'm sorry that the family's of the murdered would have to deal with that criminal remaining alive, but that is a basic animal instinct, which is why family's are not given the power to decide on the fate of the criminal. But we should be striving for that frame of mind that is higher up on the evolutionary scale, forgiveness. It is much harder to forgive than to harbor hate, and so often we succumb to base feelings and emotions. Surely we have evolved from the old "eye for an eye" mentality.

i know a girl who was raped and stabbed to death (she was stabbed 27 times) and guess what the ******* who did it was black. i dont understand why so many people still act like this is the 1960s i mean geeze now that we have dna identification capabilities and (believe it or not) most of white america is not racist. it is a good thing. i cant imagine letting someone who did what that guy did live

did you all know that of all the countries using the death penalty, the country which has executed the highest amount of child offenders since 1990 is the USA?? wow. and this is due to the incredible conditions these kids meet in court. ALL of the children executed came from broken homes (one boy was raped by his stepfather, several watched their mothers be beaten to death, etc.) ALL were borderline mentally retarded with below-average intelligence levels and many suffering from disorders like schitzophrenia. and NONE of this information was brought to the attention of the judge/jury due to the incompetant legal counsel assigned to these kids (this is NOT just my opinion...the facts have been reviewed and re-reviewed). and furthermore thank you to whomever posted the 60% error fact. 60%???? how can anyone POSSIBLY justify putting innocent people to death?? I'd pay the extra money to keep people in jail if it means innocent lives will be saved.

I have two problems with the death penalty

1) The disproportionate number of black men on death row, is disgusting. There are more of our men in death row than in college!! Forty percent of blacks are on death row, in comparison to the 12% of our national population. With those statistics, no one can tell me that the judicial system isn't dripping with discrimination.

2) Since 1950's, there have been 10 innocent people put to death.
There innocence was determined by DNA tests, after their death. If these innocent souls were sentenced to life in prison, they could be living today, and trying to become acquainted with the outside world once again. The lost of a single innocent life is a slap in the face, and a tragedy of the judicial system.

- I was reading "Live from Death Row"- by death row inmate Mumia Abdul Jamal. Its very intriguing. He's conducted extensive research on cases that have resulted in death penalty convictions in Georgia ( a state that has an overt racist criminal justice system). There is a section where he talks about the likelihood of a person receiving the death penalty depending on the race of their victim. He found that 6 times out of 10, defendants were put on death row for killing a white person rather than a black . This statistic not only shows the racist edge of our justice system, but also the greater value that is put on the life of a white person as opposed to a black person.

I think that the death penalty should be used in the most extreme cases where either that person is pycho and killed someone and cannot be helped. I think that who every kills another living soul should rot in jail and suffer for what they did. If they die quickly then their hurting is over but what about the family of the victim. They have to live with it for the rest of their life. Personally if someone in my family was murdered I would what to see that person rot and suffer in jail instead of going to the death penalty. For example, I think the Yate's case where she killed her 6 children she should suffer in jail for the rest of her life. She says that she had Postpardum Depression but I personally don't think that it could go as far as killing your own children. Some people are saying that she just did it for revenge on her husband. I am not sure how to go about that rumor. But anyway I think that she should rot in jail for the rest of her life.
God Bless
goldenangel82087

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The death penalty is rarely used, and if used, for extreme cases, such as first degree murder

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Rare? I don't think so. Or are you reffering to s specific state?

i don't have a definite opinion on the issue of death penalty, but there's something to argue about on both sides.
Pro-what BUSHSUPPORTER said about disrespecting another's life is very right. The death penalty is rarely used, and if used, for extreme cases, such as first degree murder. If someone, one day, out of the blue, decides to kill another just for the heck of it, then i don't think that person deserves to live. Everyone's lives are precious and unique, and no one in this whole universe, has the right to take another's life just because he or she wanted to. Like King Hammurabi of Babylon said in his Code of Hammurabi, a eye for an eye. if you take someone's life, you pay back with your own.

Con-however, the problem with death penalty is that many times, the person is sentensed to death when he or she is unguilty. As unfair as that sounds, it's called life and that no one's perfect. Sometimes, a case can never be resolved and innocent people's lives are the stakes.

Overall, there's something to argue on both sides. It's not fair to have one live when he or she took the life of another purposely, however, it's also not fair to sent someone to Hades when he or she is not guilty, but just couldn't prove it.

I dont believe in the death penalty,
1:because got would want any of his kids dead
2:because if my paretns were shot i still wouldnt want the shooter dead
3:better revenge would definately be sitting alone the rest of your life

How about we take all the deathrow people and burn em for fuel! alright!

Yeah, i see your point. It's just that I don't think its fair that inmates are more comfortable than many people earning an honest living out in the real world. There is no real remedy to this though, because the second you take away TVs or computers people will complain that you're taking away prisoners' rights.

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Rockergrl, brace yourself: I agree.

(Okay, maybe not about the comfort level of prisons...but with everything else.)

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Hey, I don't doubt it.


But really ... I don't see how prisons are oh-so-comfortable. It's prison, for Pete's sake. It's not like hordes of people are commiting crimes just so they can get in or anything.

Rockergrl, brace yourself: I agree.

(Okay, maybe not about the comfort level of prisons...but with everything else.)