jillio

I couldn't agree with you more, Oceanbreeze. The details of individual cases only serve to cloud the bigger issue.

I will not pretend to understand what it is to loose a family member through a violent death such as murder. I have not experienced that; however, I do have great empathy for those that have. It would only be natural to want to transfer the suffering that one endures as a result onto what is perceived as the cause of that suffering. However, the desire to make another feel the pain that we are experiencing, no matter how normal or how understandable, is still, by all definition, a desire for revenge. We want to impose on another the pain that we are experiencing with the mistaken belief that we will be relieved of our pain by imposing it on someone else. Does it work? Decidedly not. Our loved one is not returned to us. The situation is not changed. It does not take us back in time, and reverse the situation. It simply compounds it.

We tell our children, on a daliy basis, that if someone treats you unfairly, or badly, it is not appropriate or justifiable, to act the same way. "Be the bigger person", we tell them. "Take the high road." "Do not bring yourself down to their level." And then we turn around and support the idea that it is perfectly acceptable to kill in retaliation for killing. That is contradiction and hypocracy.

And the simple fact remains that our system is flawed. Until we can be absolutely, 100% sure of guilt in any situation; and our system proves that it is subject to human error; we cannot be certain that we have not executed in error.

Deafness

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on AllDeaf.com

Oceanbreeze

And, yet...I wonder, because, I ALSO don't ever want to see my grandfather's killer ever free again. The details of my grandfather's death are gruesome. It's so heinous that my Mother STILL hasn't told me *everything* about it. I know he was killed. I know how. I know he was abused before he was killed, but I told my Mother that there are just some things I DO NOT want to know, so she hasn't told me.

I am starting to believe that the questions I have about the death penalty will never be answered, because I don't think anyone will be brave enough to call a halt to executions, so they can examine all that is wrong the process.

__________________

Oceanbreeze

And, I'm choosing not to answer, because that's an inflamatory question.

__________________

shel90

Jillo, I can see your points but my issue is that while the killer or killers are in jail, there is a chance for parole or chance for escape. That idea alone is frightening enough and for the victims' families, that has to be torment. I am basing my opinions on from what my mom and her family has shared what little info on how they feel about what happened to my mom's cousin. No, I dont know what it is like to lose someone to violent crimes but I think if I lost someone to a violent crime, I would want that person dead for several reasons. One being that this person would never ever commit another crime against another family.

__________________
~Shel~

Byrdie714

Suppose it was you that was murdered and your friends and family are like..."Let the killer serve his/her time and they can be paroled" and/or "No death penalty for this person."

If you were brutally murdered, wouldn't you want your loved ones seek justice for you?

If I wanted "revenge" -- I could've killed the person myself. Instead I chose, "justice" for my daughter's murder.

There is a difference between the two.

__________________
We can Bomb the World into Pieces...
But we can't bomb it into Peace.

shel90

I am sorry about your daughter. I am at loss for words.

Yea, revenge would be taking the law into one's hands.

__________________
~Shel~

Cheri

Right. Do you remember the movie, "A Time to Kill" where 10-year-old girl named Tonya was violently rape and beaten, and her father killed the two guys who did this to his daughter? He did it out of revenge, it's not that I blamed him, because I don't, he just didn't want those two men to walk out free, and you don't either, nobody does.

__________________

jillio

Yes, you could have, and opened yorself up for his family to take the same kind of revenge against you. Instead, the state does the killing.

jillio

But that's my point. Our penal system is intended to punish the behavior of the individual, not dole out justice based on our emotional needs. That isn't to say that I don't empathize with the victims, because I do. And I understand the validity of their feelings. But if we allow emotion to make these decisions, we loose all objectivity. That is why a criminal is tried in front of a judge....an objective party. And why jurors can't know the parties participating in the trial. It would skew their objectivity in making a decision.

shel90

That's kinda hard in some cases..the OJ Simpson case is a perfect example, for one.

__________________
~Shel~

jillio

Yeah, it is. That's why a lot of captial murder cases are tried in different counties than the one where the murder happened. But with someone like O.J....he's a public figure. But the attorney's questions to the jurors when they are picking them rule out any bias.

KarissaMann05

Yeah, I see the same thing too.

Funny, I dont see many murders around the world but this USA? (or its jsut my opinion, I guess)

__________________

Credit by KarissaMann05

jillio

The U.S. is very high in its murder rate.

KarissaMann05

Yep yep.
I personally don't think penalty death is sovled a problem but a such harm thing cause our nature.

(Ps- stupid computer kicked me out so it took me a while until I finally logged in. Sorry abt that >.< dang)

__________________

Credit by KarissaMann05

Oceanbreeze

This is also true.

I don't know how many posters on the forum noticed my signature. The picture of the woman was my best friend. She was killed by a drunk driver Apr 20th, 2007. The woman who killed her pled no contest tp involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 4 yrs in prison. She will be up for parole in a little over 2.5-3 yrs from now.

This wasn't a death penalty case, but it goes to prove your bolded statement. It gulls me that this woman wasn't charged with murder, and will be walking the streets in a few years, but she wasn't and she will be.

In my mind, this woman made the choice to drink, and then, get behind the wheel of her SUV. Then, she killed my friend with that vehicle. A clear-cut case of murder in my mind, but in the state where this took place, she was charged with involuntary manslaughter. I don't understand it.

I know the US has the best penal system in the world, but that still leaves alot to be desired in my mind.

__________________

jillio

I agree that our penal system has many flaws, and that it sometimes appears that what is very cut and dried doesn't turn out to be so cut and dried in the eyes of the law.

Once again, I am not minimizing your feelings at all regarding the death of your friend. It was a tragedy,and your anger is justified. But the law also looks at not just the end result of something, but of intent as well. That is why, for instance, there are different degrees of murder, and also why the manslaughter charge exists. They look at the woman's intent. Yes, she knowlingly got in the car, while intoxicated, and every reasonable person understands that they risk having an accident and injuring, or worse, killing another human being. That is a given. But the law also looks at another question. Was it her intent, when she got behind the wheel of that car, to have an accident and take another life? When she turned that key, was she thinking, "I am going to drive down the road and pick a victim at random, purposely hit her vehicle, and kill her."? Because she was intoxicated, she is responsible for placing the rest of the drivers on the road at greater risk. By knowlingly placing others at greater risk, she unintentionally caused a death. She has to be held responsible for what she caused. But the forethought of murder wasn't there. Likewise, someone who intentionally plans and carries out the death of another is charged with 1st degree murder because the intent was to purposely take that action that they knew whould result in the death of another. It didn't happen as the result of another action.

If a child climbs up on the counter to get a cookie, knowing that he is not supposed to have the cookie, and in the process, breaks the cookie jar, do we consider when we punish him, that his intent was not to break the cookie jar, but to get the cookie he knew he wasn't supposed to have? We consider that the breaking of the cookie jar was an accident that occurred in the process of trying to do something else. Of course, he still deserves to be punished, because he was breaking a rule. But the breaking of the cookie jar was not a purposeful act on his part.

On the other hand, if a child is angry with his mother for forbidding him to have a cookie, and picks up the cookie jar and smashes it on the floor intentionally, we will punish him quite differently, won't we? Why, because his intent was different. The result was the same, but one act is malicious, and one isn't.

If the cookie jar was a prized family heirloom, the mother is going to feel the same degree of sadness over it's loss, no matter how it was broken. Her emotional reaction will be the same no matter the circumstances. But because she treats her child fairly and humanely, she also looks at intent before meting out the punishment to him. Was his intent to hurt her by breaking somethng that she valued, or was his intent simply to get a cookie, with no thought of causing her pain. We punish accordingly. If we punish accordingly, the child learns that he must think carefully before doing something because of the consequences of his actions that can lead to hurting other people. He learns that he must not act on impulse because very often it causes things to happen that we don't mean to happen. He learns a lesson, and he is taught responsibility for his actions. He is made to pay the price for his actions, but with the understanding that his intent was not malicious, but the responsibility is still his.

If we punish out of proportion to his intent, he learns that he will be severely punished no matter what, so he might as well go ahead and break the cookie jar on purpose, because it doesn't matter that he didn't mean to. He learns to behave recklessly without thinking of the consequences of his behavior. How his behavior might impact others doesn't matter to him, because the punishment will be the same whether his behavior was intentional or not. We are on our way to raising a sociopath who has no concern for others, and sees the destruction of another as justifiable in getting what he wants.

Again, I am not discounting your feelings at all, and hope you don't think that my caparisons are insensitive regarding your friends death. I am just trying to explain why, if we want punishment to have the intended effect, which is to punish the behavior while teaching a lesson so that the behavior will not recurr, we have to consider intent when we decide what punishment is appropriate. Innaproriate, I think we can all agree, is for the angry mother to go into the child's room an dbreak his favorite toy so that he will experience the same sense of loss as she did when the cookie jar was broken. Such an action might relieve her anger for the moment, but creates even greater problems for the future, and teaches the child that revenge is perfectly acceptable.

I also have to say that I admire you, having experienced what you have in your life, for being able to engage in an intelligent and thoughtful discourse on this topic, and to see the flaws of the justice system despite your pain.

Liebling:-)))

wow what a coincidence because your description is almost prefect to the title of movie, I saw at few years ago.

Yes I would recommend you to rent the DVD or VHS to watch it... Very, very, sad and emotion story... It´s true story.

__________________

*sniffing you*

Liebling:-)))

OB, I´m very sorry about the loss of your beloved Grandfather and also your best friend. Yes I can understand how you feeling over Justice system. It´s really very sad. Yes I agree with you that it won´t bring your beloved one back.


I am very, sorry about your loss of your precious daughter.

Yes I can understand your anger and what you feeling is normal but you know that every murderers do have the parents and families. You can image how reaction, the parents or families are after learn that their son or daughter or husband/wife is a murderer. You lost your daughter to a Killer and they also lost their son or daughter/husband or wife to death penalty if you want your daughter´s killer to executed. You and the killer´s parents have the same feeling.

I would consider it as a revenage if you want to have justice to excute him/her. It´s their decision if they want to contact their son/daughter or not if the court decided to lock him/her to life sentence with the help from juries´s vote.

You can try to understand the picture when you are killer´s parent. That´s why I don´t support death penalty because it would make murder victim´s families suffering... like what OB described in her post. Victim´s families would receive more suffering from killer´s families... it create more and more problem...

I am trying to say there´s a big difference between forgiveness and justice. Forgiveness is the only thing is allow you to live a life free of pain. If you can´t let it go, it would keeps you suffering rest of your life. I am not saying that a killer should not deserve his punishment but he do DESERVE his right punishment for what he/she did to innoncent victim.

I do not agree to sentence crimes to death because it´s person who commit crime and get punishment, not punish their parents for take their son/daughter´s life away to death penalty because killer´s parents or families do not deserve to being blame, too. It´s person itself who commit crime deserve his/her punishment, not us parents.

__________________

*sniffing you*

Liebling:-)))

Yes death penalty does not reduce the crimes but create more problems.

__________________

*sniffing you*

Cheri

How does it create more problems? I'm curious.

__________________

Liebling:-)))

Yes, accord the link of murder victim´s families venting against death penalty.

Would Justice system ignore or fulfill murder victim´s families´s wish for not sentence killer to death?

__________________

*sniffing you*

Liebling:-)))

Check my several links in my previous posts and also my previous posts as well.

You can type those word when you visit google then it will tell you.

__________________

*sniffing you*

Cheri