Child Sodomy Punishable By Death?
 

Legislator suggests making child sodomy a crime punishable by death.

ATLANTA - People convicted of sodomizing children in Georgia could face the death penalty under a bill introduced Wednesday by a freshman Republican legislator.

If approved, the measure by Rep. Timothy Bearden of Villa Rica would make Georgia the second state to consider child sodomy a crime punishable by death. Louisiana is the only state where child sodomizers can be put to death now, although it's never been carried out there.

A Georgia law banning sodomy among consenting adults was overturned by the state Supreme Court in 1998. It is still a crime to commit sodomy with a child under age 10; Bearden's bill would raise that to age 12.

The lawmaker said he was inspired to write the bill because he once worked in law enforcement and wanted to increase penalties for crimes against children.

"Seeing the victims and seeing the predators that commit this crime, that's what I was thinking about on this," he said.

Current law calls for people convicted of aggravated sodomy - forcible sodomy - to serve 10 years to 30 years in prison. Bearden's bill would add a caveat to that sentence, calling for sodomizers to receive life in prison or the death penalty if the victim is less than 12 years old.

Georgia currently has only four capital crimes: murder, kidnapping with bodily injury or ransom where the victim dies, aircraft hijacking and treason.

In Louisiana, state legislators voted in 1995 to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty for the rape of a child under 12. That law is controversial, and no child rapists have been put to death, said law professor Stuart Green of Louisiana State University.

First, Green said, making child rape or sodomy a capital crime could create an incentive for child rapists to kill their victims, the best witnesses against them. Also, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled (in a Georgia case) that rape cannot be a capital crime, although that ruling applies only to the rape of adults.

Louisiana's Supreme Court has upheld the death penalty for child rape, but questions over the law's validity have lingered, Green said.

"It's been controversial since the beginning," he said. "The controversy probably explains why it's never been applied."

The Louisiana law was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

The Georgia sodomy bill now heads to the House Judiciary Committee, of which Bearden is a member.

There were no co-signers on his measure, and the odds are traditionally long for substantive bills proposed by freshmen lawmakers. In a sign Bearden isn't afraid of throwing out long-shot proposals, he also introduced a bill allowing the revival of the Confederate battle emblem on the state flag, something leaders from both parties say won't be considered.

ON THE NET

Read House Bill 13: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/2...ltext/hb13.htm


I for one, am all for this...I'm not a parent....and I'm not particularly an advocate of the death penalty in so many words...but I DO believe that anyone that would harm a child should get what they got coming to them...

Wow, I wasn't aware that this law was already in place in Louisiana... I'm curious to see how much, if any press this receives. I hope every state that still has a death penalty considers putting child molestation as a offense punishable by death.

I don't support the death penalty for anything.

Mr Mephisto

Well, generally speaking, I don't believe that the death penalty should be used as MUCH as it is. In that aspect of it, i'm not truly a "supporter". I believe our prisons are far too overcrowded as they are, and the "death penalty'' as it stands is just an excuse for the prisoners to waste taxpayers money for a longer period of time. I DO however believe, for various reasons that there ARE some instances where someone deserves to die...and if you're hard up enough for some kind of sexual satisfaction, that you have to do that to a CHILD.....then you'll get what's coming to you.....be it by death penalty or not. It may not be a sterile needle, but in a lot of prisons in the world, people who do cruel and unusual things to children generally dont live very long anyway, even if they're NOT on death row.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

Steve, thank you for the interesting articale and your comments after said articale. In the future though, please don't use that color. Using the QUOTE tags will be quite sufficient to visually seperate the content in your post.. Just put [ ] around the word quote, the [/ ] around the second word quote at the end of what you want to appear as quoted.

as for the content,

Why bother? As stated in the articale, it would give incentive to kill the vicitims. As it is already, child molestor's have a life expectancy on the inside of less than 12 months. Not even serial killers want to be in a cell with a child molestor. Most are killed quickly after sentancing by fellow inmates.

Chid rapists are among the lowest form of scum, but too many people have been released from death row, based on DNA evidence, for me to be comfortable with the death penalty. Locking them up for life gives society and science a chance to correct a mistake.

Is this true? Do you have a reference for this?

I would be very surprised if this was the case.


Mr Mephisto

Once upon a time My father did criminal law, now he does banking law. Most of his freinds from when he was a prosocuter still come and hang around the house when my parents invite freinds over for wine and trivial pursuit. On more than one occasion, the criminal prosocuters in the group have started speaking about how quickly child molesters are killed behind bars.
They are not the only place I have heard this either. Obviously I am speaking about the United States here, but I have no reason to think that other countries are different. I'll google and see if I can't come up with some empirical evidence for ya.

I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, either. I think it's safe to say, though, that someone convicted and imprisoned for child molestation will most definitely face some severe form of punishment by his fellow inmates.

This is no longer even remotely true, unless it's a very high profile case like Dahmer. It's fairly common to segregate criminals of this type away from the general population. And all you need to do is look at the various state sex offender registries to see that there are indeed a lot of convicted child molesters that have been released back into society.

I'm thinking that for child molesters, the DNA evidence will favor the State's case. If there's DNA evidence conclusively showing that the person in question is guilty, I'm all for frying them.

I don't think child molestation is worse than any other sexual crime, or even most crimes for that matter. They'd better be looking to apply the death penalty for more than just this. I agree that it would add incentive to kill the victim.

The problem isn't overuse of the Death Penalty, it's gross underuse, coupled with far too long between sentencing and carrying out the execution.

I'm at odds with this. I hate scum and I wish it could be removed from this planet. On the other hand we as people should not judge others. Keeping someone in a prison for their lifetime is way to expensive, a bullet is very cheap. Perhaps instead we should put people who do stuff like this into forced labor where the money they make is either given to a victems fund or used to better the nation somehow (after costs of keeping them in prison is paid for). Of course we can always give them the option to die if that is what they want.

This I agree with (My God! I agree with Daswig!!). I'm led to believe that most sexual criminals are segregated for their own safety.

This I don't agree with (Ahh.. that's better! :)). I just don't support the death penalty on moral grounds.


Mr Mephisto

I don't know. When I lived in Washington state several years ago there was a widely publicized case there in a town called Wenatchee where about 40 people were falsly accused of child molestation and about 28 of them were convicted. Most of these people were very poor with low IQs.

The accusations were made by a very sick policeman and members of child protective services. I believe that most or all of their convictions have been overturned by now but many spent years in prison until it got straightened out. At least I think most are free by now.

The problem with child molestation is that we all get so upset upon hearing about it. Unfortunately there are some sick people in positions of authority who from time to time find it occuring everywhere they look. I don't know what their motives are, perhaps they were molested as a child themselves or something.

I don't trust the police and especially the prosecutors enough to send anyone to death nowadays. Unfortunately DNA evidence can be planted. I think most are trying to get the guilty off the streets but I believe many defendants are railroaded especially those with no resources.

I remember watching on one of the news shows a while back about how some prisoners on death row were being released because of the new DNA testing. A Texas judge said in an interview that she wanted all the old rape kits destroyed because too many were being set free. She said they were already convicted by a jury of their peers and their appeals had been used up and besides there may have been co-ejaculators.

I have never been arrested for anything and with people like that in the system I hope I never am.

Genital castration. Maybe shock therapy but then they would pee themselves and some poor shlub would have to clean it up.

Sometimes DNA indicates guilt, sometimes it indicates innocence. In a lot of cases it isn't applicable or is contaminated. Advances in technology have proven dozens of death row inmates innocent. While I'd personally pull the lever to fry Chuck Manson, I don't think you can write a perfect law that absolutely prevents any chance of an innocent person being condemned to death. Nothing short of perfection is acceptable when applying the death penalty.

Sexual assault, be it against adults or children, isn't about sexual gratification. It's about power. Castration is ineffective: They just substitute other things for their own genitals. The reason they're doing what they do is to see the fear and hear the scream.

The fact that you agree with something I said makes me wonder if I'm wrong. I'll ask somebody from DoC tomorrow at work, just to make sure.

"If you're fer it, then I'm agin it."

;) :thumbsup:

Personally, I endorse the encouragement of life-shortening vices for people in prison. We confiscate all these drugs year after year....we ought to distribute the really pure stuff to the inmates in large quantities. If they overdose, hey, they're the ones who took it... :thumbsup:

Another vote right here for "under absolutely no circumstances".

I've heard before about the issue of prison inamtes killing child molesters, and that it was, for a time, a normal thing around the world. Also, there was a similar issue with women charged with killing their children, who would often be abused or killed by fellow inmates while serving their jail terms. What I don't understand is how prison inmates can claim to have a moral right to judge and punish other prison inmates. It's like that pot & kettle thing.

The problem is that once investigators "like" someone for a crime they will often move heaven and earth to prove their suspicions. Evidence that doesn't fall in line with the investigation is overlooked, and more credence is placed on circumstantial evidence than would otherwise be warranted. It becomes more of a How to prove that Suspect "A" did the crime, as opposed to finding out who actually did the deed.
I saw the same thing. It was this, along with a Texas (I'm almost positive it was Texas, but not 100%) Forensic Patholigist that was intentionaly tampering with evidence to obtain desired results. No fewer than 20 innocent men were released from Death Row, based on a re-examination of the evidence that resulted in thier conviction. It was these cases that turned me, a diehard death penalty supporter, 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

Well said.

I'm not sure there'd BE a reference for this....short of personal experience or first hand knowledge, but it's a well known unpublished fact that if you go to prison for something done to a child....you become the bait real quick...

Actually chemical castration for sex offenders has proved to be quite the opposite: (from http://www.csun.edu/~psy453/crimes_y.htm )
Personally I am for the death penality in extreme cases. If you have proven yourself unfit to live in society by means of killing people around you, I'm not going to pay for your 3 meals a day for 60+ years (which usually happens anyway due to legal entanglements :| ). I do agree with Meph and some others that the death penalty is used far too liberally, especially in cases of child molestation. Even in my relatively calm homestate of Iowa we get cases of molestation that are eventually recognized as unfounded slanderous attacks (especially on teachers), and it absolutely ruins the accused persons life. Take that one step further where you would be putting a perfectly innocent persons life in the hands of a lying "victim", the only outcome I can see is negative.

I think Hollywood and the media have done a fairly good job establishing this myth, but until any of us actually find stats ( :D ) we'd just be speculating.

I couldn't agree more. Well played. Killing people as puinishment for killing someone. That's one of the great hypocracies of our time. I will never support the taking of life for any reason.

I say castration and a mental institution would be more likely to help these people. Killing someone won't help them learn.

I don't support the death penalty either. no matter the case. The system is imperfect and it should not be deciding something as final as ending a persons life.

If sodomizing a child is to be punishable by death then all forms of rape should be as well. Otherwise this places more value on the life (victimization?) of a child than any other member of our society.

A man is threatening the lives of 100 innocent people intentionally and unjustifiably. The only way to stop the deaths of those people is to kill this man.

You wouldn't?

I would.

And I say this as someone who believes that the death penalty is, without exception, murder.

Really.

You might think differently if you were wrongly convicted of killing someone and were sentenced to death.

If the system were 100 % fool proof, I might almost acknowledge your arguement, but it's not.

I can think of 4 men in Canada that were convicted of murder and now it turns out they were innocent.

1. David Milgarde (spent 25 years in jail, turns out he's innocent.)

2. Donald Marshall

3. Guy Paul Morin (convicted of killing 9 year old Christine Jessop. Turns out the cops framed him, hid evidence that cleared him, and in the words of one astute juror, "yeah, I knew he did it when he didn't make eye contact when he testified")

4. Stephen Truscot (at age 14 was sentenced to hang for killing 12 year old Lynne Harper. Has been fighting to clear his name for 40 some odd years. I think he spent 15 years in prison. Turns out the cops framed him too.)


Now there's 4 that I can think of without even so much as a google search.

FoolThemAll,

That's a common philosophical question. And one that's not really useful except outside the classroom.

The question is, do we support the death penalty for child sodomy. Not child oral rape, not child vaginal rape, not child sexual abuse, not child prostitution, but child sodomy. Despite the obvious and ridiculous indiscrepancies inherent in the question, I personally do not support the death penalty for any crime.

I think it's dangerous. I think it's wrong. I think it's expensive. I think it doesn't act as a deterent (indeed, it actually encourages murder). And I think it's hypocritical.

The question of whether I would take one life to save another is a philosophical one; one that 99.99+% of us will never have to address.

Mr Mephisto

Prepare yourself for a smart-ass comment about the Canadian justice system... :)

Mr Mephisto

my sentiments as well.

I had sorta' overdosed on the politics board up until the election, but am slowly starting to read it again.

This is an interesting point, but it should be approached from a couple of different angles.
During the Kobe Bryant trial there was some talk about our nation's rape laws and how they had become out of whack because politicians can "get tough on crime" by increasing sentences, and could increase sentences for rape to appeal to women voters. In my opinion, it has reached absurdity when you can get longer in prison for stabbing them with a penis than you would get for stabbing them with a knife. In that sense, the death penalty for sodomy seems pretty harsh, too.

From the other side, I'll tell you the story of a kid in my wife's third grade classroom in one of her first years of teaching. The school counselor had a meeting with her before he came into her class during the middle of the year. He started school there after being taken away and living with new foster parents. His ass no longer worked, because he had been abused so much. That sounds crude, but it's accurate. I get upset just writing about it. The kid had accidents (alot) and eventually started wearing a modified diaper. Whenever I would hear about it, it made me really want to kill the man that had done this.

Well, my original intention was to then talk about how if we value life, then the taking of a life as punishment for anything less than the taking of another life does not make sense. But after thinking about that kid, unless some doctor somewhere can do asshole transplants, his life is pretty much over. Can you imagine? Maybe they should be killed.

Well, no, because as of right now it costs the state more to execute someone than it does to just keep them locked up until they die.

Hell, I don't know anymore.

People's ideas of life change quick when they are on the wrong side of things...

99.99+%? I'd certainly acknowledge that it's an uncommon occurence, but that percentage doesn't strike me as realistic.

Forget about citizens who find themselves in that unlikely situation; what about cops or those in the armed forces? These are people for which the possibility of lethal defense is right there in the job description. Such people need to be willing to defend with lethal force in case the situation arises. And that situation is no longer a mere classroom exercise, but instead a real-life possibility.

And then those of us that fit into the "99.99+%" still have to address whether we wish to support professions that swear to kill when necessary.

So actually, I find the hypothetical quite useful. It's an extreme example meant to test whether one would accept more normal instances of killing in others' defense.

I maintain my assertion.

If we assume the population of the world is approximately 6,000,000,000, then my formula would equate to 6,000,000 people being put in that situation during their lifetime.

Six million people.

Do you honestly believe that six million people have been put in a situation where, if they did not kill someone, another person would die?

I don't.


Self defence was not the issue raised. Pre-emptive action was. And I don't believe 6,000,000 soldiers, or policemen and women, have had to kill someone to prevent another death.

Maybe they've had to kill in self-defence. Maybe they killed in war. But not in the circumstances your example implied.

Whilst I'm a pacifist, I do support and accept the need for armed forces. Indeed, I also support armed conflict in certain circumstances (quite a bit more broadly than many may think due to my "reputation" here as a liberal).

See above.

Well, accepting it and performing it are two different things. The hypothetical question is indeed useful as a I said; in a philosophical way and in the classroom. But it's not a questoin 99.99% of us (or "most of us" if you prefer) need to ask ourselves on a daily or intermittent basis.

Interesting discussion.

Mr Mephisto

Point taken.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I mentioned self-defense. I was speaking of justified pre-emptive action. Scenarios where there is imminent danger.

I think the big question that keeps me imagining that the example is applicable to nearly all is this: why are you a pacifist? Is it personal preference, or is pacifism the one correct path for all? Your quote here would seem to indicate the former, but is there a third option I'm missing?

If it's personal preference, then it's certainly possible to support and see as moral the taking of lives by other people in defense of others. And then we might just be in agreement.

If it's a matter of considering it immoral, and the decision not to take a life is considered always the more moral or less immoral choice, then I'd have to wonder how that is reconciled with any support of the existence of police and the armed forces. This may be more appropriately directed to willravel.

You don't see how people who have committed crimes considered lesser in their society can judge others? If that's the case, nobody should go to jail. There are degrees to crimes, and it's not realistic to think that this would be different just because everyone is in prison.

Also, I have read that now most child molesters are kept segregated in their own wings in prison.

And as for the castration issue, many psychologists feel that it is effective in some cases. Even if rape is often about power, that isn't always the case in child molestation. And even if it is, by removing alot of the various producers of testosterone, the drive for violence is often found to go down. I researched this a small amount a couple of years ago for a report I did on the sex offender registry laws that were being enacted them. Chemical castration especially is found to often reduce recidivism in child molesters (in the few instances it's been used).

See my above post...

Chemical castration...huh. I'm for the old fashion method of a rubber band and a knife.

As for the death penalty for child sodimizers, well I'm not convinced that it would act as a deterrant to child sodomy, but might cause the sodimizer to take the child outside the state or just kill him anyway.

Just because one is convicted of child sodomy does not automatically imply death, as the jury will have to decide on the punishment to reccomend based on the facts of the crime and the judge will have to impose the sentance. The way our justice system is set up, beyond a reasonable doubt, and with mandatory appeals, along with better technology for DNA analysis, Yeah. I'm all for it.

The reason I mentioned self-defence was the line "Such people need to be willing to defend with lethal force in case the situation arises."

I was being safe in my interpretation. :)

I think we can both agree that self-defence, appropriate self-defence, is acceptable.

Well, there are degrees of pacificism. My sense of pacificism is a moral one. I believe force should be used as a last resort.

However, as I said earlier, I accept the need for police and armies. I also believe in a concept of a "just war". World War Two is a perfect example. Indeed, the invasion of Afghanistan is quite close in a modern sense. And, believe it or not, the invasion of Iraq (had the intelligence proved correct), would also have been perilously close. All that was required to justify it was

- Proof that the WMDs did exist
- Verification of the "deployable in 45 minutes" claim
- UN Security Council resolution under Article 7 of the Charter

Unfortunately number 3 was never forthcoming and numbers 1 and 2 are sadly lacking.


I think we may be, but it's still something I struggle with. It all depends upon your definition of "in defense of others."

The US seems to have interpreted this as "well, they might use them in the future" or "well, they could give them to terrorists"; both claims that I find hard to swallow. In other words, I'm not sure I support pre-emptive strikes. It's a difficult moral, philosophical and, in today's world, real and immediate question we must ask ourselves.

Well, I think it's certainly possible for the taking of a life to be considered less moral than not taking it, yet still supporting it as "the lesser of two evils". The support for the existence of police and the armed forces is perfectly acceptable in both our beliefs in the right of self defense.

Ireland has a police force that is mostly unarmed. It is not necessary for the police to kill people except in the most extreme circumstances (at least in Ireland). In the US, where society is armed to the teeth, a different set of variables enter the equation and things get murky.

So, I do believe that not taking a life is alway more moral than taking one. But taking a life is sometimes justified.

Quite subtle shades of grey, eh?

And unlike others, I do not hold some sort of inherent belief that I'm right and others are wrong. These are my, constantly evolving, set of beliefs and I struggle with dealing with the nuances every day. At least every day that I debate such topics with interesting people on TFP!

I don't have all the answers. But I try to do, I try to support, what I think is right. Pre-emptive strikes are usually not to be supported. It is not OK to attack a nation or kill someone, just because they MIGHT do something in the future. It MAY be right to attack a nation or kill someone if you KNOW they are going to do something.

Make sense? Probably not. :(


Mr Mephisto

Nope, I completely understand what you mean about pre-emptive attacks, and I pretty much meant 'defense of others' in which there is an imminent threat. I'm not completely sure I agree with you on pre-emptive attacks, but it makes a lot of sense.

This is the part I didn't understand. Lesser of two evils? What's the greater evil?

The way I read it, the greater evil would be 'not taking it' (and that's what I believe), but that would contradict the first half of your sentence.

Look, if someone holds down a six year old girl, and forces ass sex on her, then that person needs to be beaten half to death, sodomized himself, and then beaten the rest of the way to death. The death penalty shouldn't be painless, it should be painful. As far as I'm concerened, screwing up children's lives is the sickest thing anyone could do.

I hope you do not support live in prison then.

Why?

Mr Mephisto

I don't support the death penalty at all. It gives criminals an easy way out. They should stay alive in prison, because it can give them time to reflect on themselves and feel guilty for what they did. Also, what gives us the right to kill others? It's like a double-standard, because it's like saying "they must die because it's wrong to kill", yet WE'RE killing them. So then we must die too, if we're going to base the death penalty on something like that.

It does not make sense to NOT support the death penalty but to support life in prison. Essentially, they do the same thing and mean the same thing. However, one costs more and still poses reasonable threat to society. The point of jail is to take people out of society. However, the idea is that their behavior can be corrected. It has to support the notion that people can change and within time, the person's may effectively be placed back into society.

Under certain circumstances, the law and the majority think that a person's crime and/or behavior is so horrible that it the person can never be rehabilitated. The answer, then, is to eliminate the person from society. The death penalty is the only response that really does this. The moral argument to support life in prison is weak as well. It's naive. It's uses arguments such as "people should not be killed," or for murder for example, "if killing is bad, how can the government justify killing people in return?" Life in prison to me is a mother that tells on her son but then begs her husband to stop whipping the child.

you do make a good point Justsomeguy, it makes a lot of sense, but do you completely disagree with me when I say that the death penatly is a double-standard because it's like saying "they must die because it's wrong to kill". Or do you truly believe that the government has the right to kill people in order to justify their crimes????

Why not?

No they don't. One ends up killing someone. Another incarcerates them.

Actually, the death penalty costs more than life in prison. Numerous studies have proven this. If you want references just let me know.

Not really, at least not in the US. In the 1970's, US prison policy effectively changed from one of rehabilitiation to one of simple punishment.

For starters, I recommend you read the paper The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy by Craig Haney (of the University of California, Santa Cruz) and Philip Zimbardo (of Stanford University). You can find it at the journals section of the American Psychological Association (direct link: http://www.apa.org/journals/amp/amp53709.pdf)

Well, patently it is not.

How so?

Yes, it does use such arguments. And many others. What's your point? If you disagree with those arguments, then fine; but I'm still confused as to what you're trying to argue.

Mr Mephisto

Thanks for backing me up there Mr Mephisto, I would have said something myself, but my conscience got in the way. And if you weren't really backing me up there, thanks anyway, because you really showed him.

Agreed, but if there is anything that tests my conviction against the death penalty, it is child rapists.

Except that if we make a mistake and convict someone wrongfully, we can (partially) unfuck the guy who was sentenced to life. Not so for the guy we just executed.

Your argument does not address the issue. Read it several times and understand why. Your problem is with the courts, which is not even being discussed.

He really showed me that I made a typo or two when I read his post and that his opinion is different. My comment was that it logically does not make sense to not support the death penalty but to support life in prison.

I think it's sad that people will crucify a man for raping a child and affecting one life and see that as worse than a high up executive in a company destroying the lives of thousands. It's a hideous the way some crimes are inflated to seem worse than ones which inflict far more damage to far more people.

Why thank you for telling me what my problem is. And after only reading a few lines of text. What insight! :rolleyes:

And it is the central issue. Because you don't care doesn't mean no one else does. Your advocacy of the death penalty leaves no room for error. I envy your confidence in our system, misplaced though it may be.

Yup, just like murder is generally a capital offense, but theft isn't. Why is that? Could it be because money can be replaced, and is, after all, just a thing, while life and a child's innocence are far harder to fix? If somebody offered you fifty million dollars in compensation in exchange for your allowing them to assrape your child, would you do it?

I think if you had a little bit more contact with people who had been sexually abused as a child, or if you actually had a child of your own, you might have a slightly different perspective.

Child molesters who actually make it into the criminal justice system alive are far luckier than they deserve to be. If they die horrible deaths in prison, so be it. They chose the tune, so they must pay the piper.

You know, despite the colourful language, that's very well put Daswig.

However, I suspect I know your position on the death penalty, but you don't mention it here. Do you support it?

You know I don't, but that's based upon my personal moral reasons.


Mr Mephisto

Hey, Mephisto. Don't mean to be a nag, but I'm wondering if you could clarify what you mean here:

I asked:

Sure thing. I thought I had responded, so my apologies for this oversight.

The taking of a life is less moral than taking a life. Agreed?
If one had a choice, between killing and not killing, then not killing is the more moral path.

However, in some circumstances, self defence, a just war, preventing an immediate threat etc, one may be able to state that killing is necessary. However, it is still immoral. Killing is always immoral. But in these circumstances it is the "lesser of two evils", because failing to act, failing to "kill" may result in much greater harm.

Neither choice is moral, but one is "less evil" (less immoral if you will), than the other.


Does this make sense? I hope I've explained myself.


Mr Mephisto

I assume you mean "less moral than not taking a life"?

If so, this reads like you're saying at the beginning that not taking a life is always the more moral choice. Then at the end, it seems like you're saying that sometimes it's the less moral choice, because it could "result in much greater harm". I'm not seeing how these two statements can go together.

My view: sometimes it is less moral not to take a life.

Stop it. Next thing you know, you'll be respecting me, and I can NOT have that. >:)

Yes indeed, I support the death penalty. In fact, I think the death penalty isn't used often enough, nor with enough swiftness. For example: I think that fucking a child under the age of 10 years old should qualify as a death penalty offense, provided certain evidentiary and statutory criteria are met. For example, if there was physical evidence (say, physical indicia of the sexual assault, coupled with a positive DNA match of the recovered evidence and the accused) and if the attacker was, say, 18 years old or older. Given those circumstances, I have no problem with the courts giving the perpetrator a "hot shot", since the evidence is indisputable and incontrovertable and the nature of the crime is so horrendous.

Additionally, I support the death penalty for adult "stranger rape" when there is DNA evidence of a conclusive nature.

I also don't think that there's any excuse for the amount of time between sentencing and execution taking over, say, 5 years. That should give everybody involved MORE than ample time for the appeals process.

But I don't support the death penalty for, say, fraud or theft...It should be kept for crimes against the person, and only if the nature of the crime could reasonably be forseen to negatively impact the victim's life permanently. So the death penalty wouldn't be on the table for breaking and entering, but would be on the table for a "hot burglary" of an occupied dwelling in the nighttime that resulted in a fatality or serious injury.

Thank you. Very well and succintly put.

I disagree, but hey... you knew that already. :)


Mr Mephisto

Hey, you're a product of your environment. It's not YOUR fault... :thumbsup:

Daswig;
I normally don't support C-P, but under the criteria that you stated I think I could find some applicability for it. I've always been a fan of C-P for rape; either that or physical/chemical castration.

Rape has never been about sex, it's about power. Physical/chemical castration is a joke as far as a means of preventing recidivism. They simply use "inanimate objects". This is why penetration with an inanimate object has been codified as a specific offense which is generally equal to rape in the eyes of the law.

I was well aware of the rape = power issue; I'd heard, however, that chemical castration was having good effects where it'd been tested in Holland and in Louisiana.

The problem with chemical castration is that it can be overridden simply by taking huge doses of testosterone (which isn't that hard to get), with the added "bennie" that the individual basically becomes much more aggressive than they were beforehand.

I'm not a supporter of castration (chemical or otherwise) either.

Put them in jail.


Mr Mephisto

I think life in a cell, where you spend 23 hours of your life in would be hell instead of taking the easy route and dying a quick death.