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Death Penalty in Europe

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pawelk1986
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22 Jul 2013, 8:09 am

I'm from Poland.

The death penalty in my country is not carried since 1989 and was officially abolished in 1997 and the stupid government of my country signed the sixth protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits the death penalty in peacetime. Unfortunately, it was a requirement that my country can join the EU. In my view, the abolition of the death penalty is a leftist BS. For me, the death penalty should still be done especially for the most heinous murders, such as those against children, etc.



The_Walrus
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22 Jul 2013, 10:05 am

The death penalty does not work as a deterrent ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/discuss ... ce-studies )
The death penalty removes the ability to overturn miscarriages of justice.
The death penalty is more expensive than life imprisonment. ( http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty )

Just thought I'd get in the right answers to the common arguments in favour of the death penalty in there.



Jacoby
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22 Jul 2013, 12:19 pm

I am not against it in principle and think the most heinous crimes warrant death but there are too many issues administrating the death penalty as a general policy.

Europe's justice system seems pretty messed up, that Brevik guy who murdered 77 people was only sentenced to 21 years imprisonment.



NewDawn
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22 Jul 2013, 12:41 pm

Jacoby wrote:
Europe's justice system seems pretty messed up, that Brevik guy who murdered 77 people was only sentenced to 21 years imprisonment.


Norway isn't a EU member state. They are a member of the Council of Europe, which means ratifying the ECHR, but were abolitionists long before that (1902).



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22 Jul 2013, 1:19 pm

Chine seems to have found a very efficient way to do it.
Image


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22 Jul 2013, 1:39 pm

Jacoby wrote:
I am not against it in principle and think the most heinous crimes warrant death but there are too many issues administrating the death penalty as a general policy.

Europe's justice system seems pretty messed up, that Brevik guy who murdered 77 people was only sentenced to 21 years imprisonment.


And the Innocence Project in the US has exonerated 18 individuals who would otherwise have been executed since 1989.

And who knows how many people were wrongfully executed before DNA evidence was discovered...



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22 Jul 2013, 1:55 pm

I do not believe in a death penalty,for the same reason GGPViper stated.What if an innocent person got the gas?But I also have never had a family member killed,so I have no idea on how I would react.But if I was 100% sure someone killed one of my kids,and I thought they should be executed,than I should have to do it.Not a stranger.


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22 Jul 2013, 2:53 pm

Other than the reasons already mentioned (doesn't deter crime, possibility of executing the wrong person, costs more than life imprisonment) there is also the question of accountability. Humans are the most aggressive of all the great apes, but the vast majority has a brain that does some checks and balances that prevents them from bashing someone else's brain in on first impulse.

Does anyone remember Ulrike Meinhof of the Rote Armée Fraktion? (For the young ones: the RAF was an extremely violent terrorist group in what was then West Germany). She hung herself in prison. Unknown to the public at that time, her brain was preserved. She had had a brain tumor very close to the limbic system removed in the 1960's. When the brain turned up again in 2002 (I think), it was found that both the anterior cingulate (regulates empathy) and the amygdala (regulates aggression and fear) had been damaged as a result of the surgery. Can you really hold someone fully accountable if their brain is damaged or defective? Obviously, such people must be kept away from society, but there still is a lot we don't know about how the brain works. The Human Genome Project and the Innocence Project that was a result of it has saved 18 innocent people. What if it turns out that these mass murderers and child molesters have a defective brain? It's already known that sociopaths have an abnormal brain structure.



Last edited by NewDawn on 22 Jul 2013, 6:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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22 Jul 2013, 3:10 pm

NewDawn wrote:
Other than the reasons already mentioned (doesn't deter crime, possibility of executing the wrong person, costs more than life imprisonment) there is also the question of accountability. Humans are the most aggressive of all the great apes, but the vast majority has a brain that does some checks and balances that prevents them from bashing someone else's brain in on first impulse.

Does anyone remember Ulrike Meinhof of the Rote Armée Fraktion? (For the young ones: the RAF was an extremely violent terrorist group in what was then West Germany). She hung herself in prison. Unknown to the public at that time, her brain was preserved. She had had a brain tumor very close to the limbic system removed in the 1960's. When the brain turned up again in 2002 (I think), it was found that both the anterior singulate (regulates empathy) and the amygdala (regulates aggression and fear) had been damaged as a result of the surgery. Can you really hold someone fully accountable if their brain is damaged or defective? Obviously, such people must be kept away from society, but there still is a lot we don't know about how the brain works. The Human Genome Project and the Innocence Project that was a result of it has saved 18 innocent people. What if it turns out that these mass murderers and child molesters have a defective brain? It's already known that sociopaths have an abnormal brain structure.


Leaves too much room for someone to commit murder, even mass murder, then say that something was wrong with their brain. There will always bee some quack doctor and unscrupulous lawyer to make a case for them that they can get a jury to swallow, even if it's total BS.


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22 Jul 2013, 3:22 pm

NewDawn wrote:
Other than the reasons already mentioned (doesn't deter crime, possibility of executing the wrong person, costs more than life imprisonment) there is also the question of accountability. Humans are the most aggressive of all the great apes, but the vast majority has a brain that does some checks and balances that prevents them from bashing someone else's brain in on first impulse.

Does anyone remember Ulrike Meinhof of the Rote Armée Fraktion? (For the young ones: the RAF was an extremely violent terrorist group in what was then West Germany). She hung herself in prison. Unknown to the public at that time, her brain was preserved. She had had a brain tumor very close to the limbic system removed in the 1960's. When the brain turned up again in 2002 (I think), it was found that both the anterior singulate (regulates empathy) and the amygdala (regulates aggression and fear) had been damaged as a result of the surgery. Can you really hold someone fully accountable if their brain is damaged or defective? Obviously, such people must be kept away from society, but there still is a lot we don't know about how the brain works. The Human Genome Project and the Innocence Project that was a result of it has saved 18 innocent people. What if it turns out that these mass murderers and child molesters have a defective brain? It's already known that sociopaths have an abnormal brain structure.


What do you do to an animal that is sick similarly? I'm against the death penalty because I don't trust the courts to administer it fairly and without error but I don't feel much sympathy for those that are truly guilty of these heinous crimes.



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22 Jul 2013, 3:25 pm

Raptor wrote:
NewDawn wrote:
Other than the reasons already mentioned (doesn't deter crime, possibility of executing the wrong person, costs more than life imprisonment) there is also the question of accountability. Humans are the most aggressive of all the great apes, but the vast majority has a brain that does some checks and balances that prevents them from bashing someone else's brain in on first impulse.

Does anyone remember Ulrike Meinhof of the Rote Armée Fraktion? (For the young ones: the RAF was an extremely violent terrorist group in what was then West Germany). She hung herself in prison. Unknown to the public at that time, her brain was preserved. She had had a brain tumor very close to the limbic system removed in the 1960's. When the brain turned up again in 2002 (I think), it was found that both the anterior singulate (regulates empathy) and the amygdala (regulates aggression and fear) had been damaged as a result of the surgery. Can you really hold someone fully accountable if their brain is damaged or defective? Obviously, such people must be kept away from society, but there still is a lot we don't know about how the brain works. The Human Genome Project and the Innocence Project that was a result of it has saved 18 innocent people. What if it turns out that these mass murderers and child molesters have a defective brain? It's already known that sociopaths have an abnormal brain structure.


Leaves too much room for someone to commit murder, even mass murder, then say that something was wrong with their brain. There will always bee some quack doctor and unscrupulous lawyer to make a case for them that they can get a jury to swallow, even if it's total BS.


Then don't use juries.

I think it is a worse evil to convict an innocent person than to let a guilty one go free.

[yay, captcha]



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22 Jul 2013, 3:35 pm

trollcatman wrote:
Raptor wrote:
NewDawn wrote:
Other than the reasons already mentioned (doesn't deter crime, possibility of executing the wrong person, costs more than life imprisonment) there is also the question of accountability. Humans are the most aggressive of all the great apes, but the vast majority has a brain that does some checks and balances that prevents them from bashing someone else's brain in on first impulse.

Does anyone remember Ulrike Meinhof of the Rote Armée Fraktion? (For the young ones: the RAF was an extremely violent terrorist group in what was then West Germany). She hung herself in prison. Unknown to the public at that time, her brain was preserved. She had had a brain tumor very close to the limbic system removed in the 1960's. When the brain turned up again in 2002 (I think), it was found that both the anterior singulate (regulates empathy) and the amygdala (regulates aggression and fear) had been damaged as a result of the surgery. Can you really hold someone fully accountable if their brain is damaged or defective? Obviously, such people must be kept away from society, but there still is a lot we don't know about how the brain works. The Human Genome Project and the Innocence Project that was a result of it has saved 18 innocent people. What if it turns out that these mass murderers and child molesters have a defective brain? It's already known that sociopaths have an abnormal brain structure.


Leaves too much room for someone to commit murder, even mass murder, then say that something was wrong with their brain. There will always bee some quack doctor and unscrupulous lawyer to make a case for them that they can get a jury to swallow, even if it's total BS.


Then don't use juries.

I think it is a worse evil to convict an innocent person than to let a guilty one go free.

[yay, captcha]


Yeah, right. Just let the media render a verdict. Who needs juries? :roll:


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Tequila
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22 Jul 2013, 3:45 pm

Raptor wrote:
Chine seems to have found a very efficient way to do it.
Image


That's not a real poster. That's a poster from Amnesty International from a few years back. They decided not to lose them. They are extremely good, mind you.



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22 Jul 2013, 3:49 pm

Jacoby wrote:
Europe's justice system seems pretty messed up, that Brevik guy who murdered 77 people was only sentenced to 21 years imprisonment.


That sentence was the maximum allowable under Norwegian law. A reflection on the low level of violent crime there possibly?

He does not get automatic release and his sentence can, and very likely will, be extended in 5 year increments.



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22 Jul 2013, 3:51 pm

Raptor wrote:

Leaves too much room for someone to commit murder, even mass murder, then say that something was wrong with their brain. There will always bee some quack doctor and unscrupulous lawyer to make a case for them that they can get a jury to swallow, even if it's total BS.


Claiming that your brain is defective (or that you had a bad childhood, which, incidentally, can cause permanent changes to the limbic system), obviously isn't good enough. It would have to be demonstrated with an objective clinical test. Just like the DNA sequencing of the Innocence Project did. There are no such tests at the moment (other than the fMRI scan detecting abnormal brain structure in psychopaths), but my question was: what if such tests are developed in the future (very likely) and then demonstrate that a number of people on death row willing to take such a test prove to have a brain defect?



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22 Jul 2013, 3:51 pm

neilson_wheels wrote:
He does not get automatic release and his sentence can, and very likely will, be extended in 5 year increments.


I doubt Breivik will ever see light of day again.