As you are probably aware, the US Supreme Court ruled this week that minors cannot be executed. Last year they ruled that the mentally retarded cannot be executed.

It's a first step toward having the US join the international community and releasing us from barbarian status, and obviously I support the decision.

What do you think?

Wait...it was actually legal to execute minors?

well i'm just against executions to begin with so whether this is a good step or not .. its a step in the direction I like.

It's a bad wording. In some states it was legal to execute people who were minors at the time when they commited the crime.

The justice system has too many problems to execute anybody, minor or adult.

IMHO, it would be a travesty to kill an innocent person using the death penalty. One mistake is one too many.

Till we have a foolproof system of finding the guilty, no DP.

Well, I'm against the death penalty as well. But I also believe in states' rights, and I don't think the decision by the Supreme Court was justified enough on the Constitution, but rather on the moral perspective of the judges. So, I agree with the decision, but I also think this is a case of judicial activism.

I also don't buy into the whole "the rest of the civilized world" argument. That argument is the first step towards the world government ;-)

I agree with jb and bABA. I'm against the death penalty all together, so any step towards removing it entirely is okay by me.

I don't see the point of capital punishment. I've never even seen a good argument in support of it.

The two most common arguments for it are "punishment that fits the crime" and "to deter future capital crimes". Whether you consider them good arguments is totally up to you.

I don't see how anyone could consider the later a good argument. The first is more of moral thing, so that's hard to argue with.

well i didn't really say that. I just said thats its ok and all but i have no real thing to say to this. A more appropriate reply was that of krem's as his opinion was more than just personal. I'm just bias, hence i agree with it .. no other reason.

Well, if I was a supporter of the death penalty I would only support it based on the first argument.

On the other hand, how can you argue that tougher punishments don't deter crime? If the charge for speeding was 10 years in jail, for instance, I doubt you'd see many people going above speed limit.

I agree.

By the number of executions, Texas should have been essentially crime-free. Most criminals are not very smart to begin with. They are not going to think logically and decide against commiting the crime because the state imposes the death penalty frequently.

If someone killed my mother, the punishment to fit the crime would be to kill theirs. And executions haven't detered murders yet.

dont agree.

The problem is, while killing someone can get you the death penalty, how often is it enforced? There are so many ways out of it or so many factors that we consider before sentencing.people get off on manslaughter, man2 and all that as well. If killing someone without reason always = death penalty (meaning no temporary insanity plees and shit), you'd see high number of executions and the latter point may also be argued.

Well, sure, life imprisonment for jaywalking would solve the problem too.

However, with murder, I don't think there is anyone going "Gee, when there was a death penalty, I never would have considered murdering anyone, but now that all I am facing is life imprisonment without a possibility of parole, I'm going on a shooting rampage!" I mean, how much determent do you need?

The wouldn't be a punishment, that would be a vendetta. The mother of the perpetrator is an innocent person.

As for executions not deterring murders - how can you tell? There's no way to find out, but I'd venture to say that someone somewhere thought twice about killing someone else because he/she figured that their life is on the line as well.

I doubt it. When someone desides, "Hey, I think i'll kill this person", chances are they aren't thinking rationally enough to stop and realize the consequences of their actions.

I agree that the possibility of a detterence is slim, but I don't think it's non-existant either. Obviously the death penalty doesn't stop all the murders, but if it stops just one, that's already a detterrent.

Mind you, I never agree with the "deterrance" argument. I don't believe any punishment should be harsher just for the sake of deterring future crimes. But that is my belief on moral grounds, and has nothing to do with the actual success rate of deterrance.

Crazier things have happened.

But capital punishment isn't a vendetta? Of course it is.

I've thought about killing people, none the reasons that have stopped me involved my life being on the line. When you're at the point where murder is an option, THE LAST thing you think about are repercussions.

thats a bod statement. There are so many times i think about running a traffic light or sneaking in a minor into a bar ... its not the respect of the law that stops me. Its the fact that I may get caught. I'm sure in most cases, people murder either because they dont care about the consequences or because they think they can get out of it (i'm negating self defense or accidental killing from this)

Ideally, I would like to see life imprisonment with no parole instead of the death penalty. I think that living the rest of your life in a prison is worse than death. Of course, I would also like to get all small time criminals (drugs) out of prison and make them much harder than they are now so the people that actually deserve to be there don't enjoy it.

What about people who htink they can get away with it? I'm sure there are quite a few that do. Why else do people hide the crime if they dont care about the repurcussions. if they couldn't hide the evidence, who can say if they would have still gone ahead with it.

You're comparing running a traffic light with murder, bABA. When you think you may run a traffic light, you're still resonable and sane. When people are getting ready to kill someone, they're far from resonable.