Replace "ticking time bombs" with "nuclear bombs" and you're all set.

I don't actually support the death penalty but here are some reasons for it:

a) It's a lot cheaper
b) Generally stated there are three main points of prison. 1. Rehabilition. 2. Vengeance/Punishmnet. 3. Isolating a dangerous person from the population. Poeple in jail for life are not being rehabilitated, so the question becomes how much are we relying on vengeance and how much on isolation in our theory of why the guy should be in jail. Ignoring all torture/extreme punishment issues, if you were to remove a murderer's arms and legs so he wouldn't be a threat to the public, would you be ok with releasing him from jail immediately? If no, then you want him in jail for vengeance, not isolation. If you're ok putting someone in jail for vengeance, why not go all the way with it and just knock them off?

Also, would you torture Hitler if he knew the exact location of a ticking time bomb that was going to explode under an anti-death penalty rally?

1) The death penalty is far more expensive since it entails such an onslaught of legal appeals and other machinations (which are required since it is an irreversible punishment).

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=385

2) Um, I can support isolation and still not be in favor of chopping off limbs. I *do* believe in the whole cruel and unusual punishment business.

meaning you believe the death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment or that you believe in cruel and unusual punishment as an effective penalty for crimes?

There's another reason for the death penalty: as a deterrent for violent crime. But i don't think it's effective in that way. I'm still ambivalent.

i believe that chopping off someone's arms and legs is cruel and unusual punishment, which is forbidden in the constitution. and i'm glad that that clause is in the constitution.

i wasn't implying anything about the death penalty in relation to cruel and unusual punishment -- that is another debate. however, since you've brought it up, one has to define what 'unusual' means in order to make sound judgments w/r/t this issue. justice kennedy thought it meant looking at international law, hence the decision to ban capital punishment of minors (conservatives hate that one). using that tack, it may follow that the death penalty itself is unusual punishment w/r/t the rest of the world. of course, you might think looking at international law isn't arrogant enough, and that we must be arrogant.

i bounce back and forth on this. let me at least say that i would NEVER consider the death penalty as a serious "deterrent." Although it may "deter" me from killing someone in Texas, so will the fact that my mother would be sincerely disappointed in me.

having said that, i think 1st-degree murderers should be killed. but because i understand that there is absolutely no fool-proof way to be sure that innocent people will not receive capital punishment, i don't think anyone should.

Deterrence:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=12&did=167

why would international law be an argument for the death penalty as unusual punishment? Lots of countries have it, lots of countries don't:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html

I don't think you can do any subdividing below sovereign nations (i.e. "western countries" or "democracies" or even "representational republics") - too much gray area, and is it the supreme court's job to judge the worthiness of other countries' laws?

sorry, i don't know if this is in that article marco just linked to, but the per capita murder rate is highest in - guess where? - Texas.

if you're looking for a cheap, deterrent system, the death penalty is antithetical to those goals.

another thing worth mentioning is that several states, including until last month or so TExas, do not offer a sentence of life without parole. So jurymembers are quite literally forced to vote for execution if they strongly believe that the person should most assuredly never be out of the prison pop again. This is coercive and ridiculous, and obviously an unethical setup by lawmakers who favor the DP.

by the by, if jail were actually only for violent offenders, we'd have far more guards and money per inmate to maintain order within the walls.

scratch several. now that TX offers life w/o parole, only NM has the DP and doesn't offer it.

"is it the supreme court’s job to judge the worthiness of other countries’ laws?"

well, they did when they undid the death penalty for minors.

listen, i don't think the cruel and unusual approach is necessary to nix the death penalty, but despite the (mostly non-western) countries who continue to support it, it's more on the decline than on the rise. i.e., it's becoming more and more unusual.

texas is ridiculous.

how will you defend your stupid state, nacho?

NACHO IS NOT FROM NEW MEXICO.

"the per capita murder rate is highest in - guess where? - Texas."

Right, but just imagine how high it would have been without the death penalty.

Ha, here's a nice quote:

"The death penalty is a warning, just like a lighthouse throwing its beams out to sea. We hear about shipwrecks, but we do not hear about the ships the lighthouse guides safely on their way. We do not have proof of the number of ships it saves, but we do not tear the lighthouse down. - poet Hyman Barshay"

that's bullshit - that "death penalty is a warning." increasing the severity of the punishment does not in any way deter the crime (i imagine that's what marco's link said, but i admit i didn't really have the patience to read through it). the only thing that's ever been shown to deter crime is increasing the probability of the criminal being caught. i mean, think about it - do most people who commit crimes do so thinking that they will probably be caught? of course not! so how much effect can increasing the severity of punishment really have?

I never understand my state. We elect Republican governors in favor of decriminalizing weed and Democratic governors that have a track history of screwing over the state.

Anna has a good point about criminal mentality, but how does one increase the probability of being caught. More officers? If a violent guy (the type of violence that would get the death penalty) wants to kill or rape would he care that there's a cop station a block away? Also if this is the same Anna from CT, I rotated through Cornell for a month a couple months ago.

"increasing the severity of the punishment does not in any way deter the crime!"

This isn't true, I would argue that severity does matter. Here's an example from my life. Currently the punishment for copyright infringement is essentially a fine (generally). I infringe copyrights regularly. If the punishment for copyright infringement was 20 years in jail (or the death penalty) I would stop. I risk the fine because it doesn't scare me much... a harsher punishment would.

Now, you'll argue that criminal acts that would recieve the death penalty are acts of passion and won't be deterred by more aggressive punishment. I'd say you're wrong.

Murder One is explicitly a pre-meditated crime. It's people who plan out how they're going to kill their enemies and spouses. If everyone who ever murdered somebody immediately had their arms and legs ripped from their body and were left in the street to die, we would see a significant drop in murders (assuming we don't count this punishment as murder).

The reason the death penalty isn't effective is because it's not a real threat. In 2004 59 people were executed. That's .00001% of people in the country each year. The United States had 12,658 a few years ago. 59 is .4% of all murders. Execution is not a serious threat if less than 1% of murders are being put to death. (I know my numbers are awful).

If we were to kill everybody who was convicted of murder on any level, it damned well would have a deterrent effect. It wouldn't eliminate murder, that probably can't be done, but it certainly would have an impact on the final number. If everybody convicted was going to the gallows, I forsee the mafia moving away from hitmen. People will move from murder to torture when they have the chance.

Not every murder is because you just couldn't take any more... a lot of it is planned. Do you think you'd be able to hire a hitman if it meant certain death for him? Certainly a few thousand dollars won't be a large enough fee.

I'm not saying I like the death penalty, I don't. But I do think it would be effective if used aggressively. Most of us, including myself, don't have the stomach for that, though.

spouses can be enemies too.

My guess is it isn't the death penalty that's not effective, it's the murder penalty that's not effective. 5 minutes of quick searching didn't get me the numbers I need, but how many life sentences without possibility of parole were issued in 2004? Don't you think the certainty of life in prison would have the same effect as the certainty of death on curbing murders?

Incidentallly, has anybody else looked at that webpage I linked to for murder stats? Their mortality stats are FANTASTIC. For example, did you know that in the United States:

77 people die per year from anal abscesses?
31 people per year are bitten or crushed by a reptile other than an alligator or crocodile?
55 people per year die from contact with hot tap water?
1 person per year die from corns or callouses?
24 people per year die from falls into bathtubs?
38 people per year die from falls from furniture other than bed and chairs?

There's tons more on there. It's a really amusing webpage.

Fortunately, unlike Brazil, we didn't have anybody die from sunburn.

Nacho, you should've called - we could've hung out.

And sure, 20 yrs in jail or the death penalty would certainly be more effective than a small fine at convincing me not to commit some minor crime, but I don't necessarily think that the death penalty would deter a criminal more than the 20 yrs or life in jail. Though I guess I don't really know how a murderer views 20 yrs in prison - maybe it wouldn't sound as bad to him/her as it does to me... But in general, I still think that ensuring the certainty of the punishment is more effective than increasing the severity of the punishment.

to some degree, sure. but if it was 100% certain that you'd have to pay a $50 fine for murder, you'd probably still commit some murders. just like we park illegally some times even though we know we'll probably be fined.

but your point is taken. i don't think anyone (here) would disagree that the best way to prevent someone from doing something is to ensure they'll have to do or endure something worse.

as long as we're discussing the criminal mind, one should also know that a fully informed criminal would also know that since 95% of everyone ever executed in the US were legally impoverished, there's not much need to worry as long as you can afford a private attorney.

and DFrame & Jon, i think there's a huge difference between comparing a fine vs jail time and life in prison vs DP. the second two are arguably much closer in terms of effect on freedom/life/happiness in general.